Posted on 12/17/2006 4:03:30 PM PST by DAVEY CROCKETT
VEVAK learned its methodology from the Soviet KGB and many of the Islamist revolutionaries who supported Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini actually studied at Moscow's Patrice Lumumba Friendship University, the Oxford of terrorism. Documented Iranian alumni include the current Supreme Leader (the faqih) Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, under whose Velayat-e Faqih (Rule of the Islamic Jurisprudent) apparatus it has traditionally operated. Its current head is Cabinet Minister Hojatoleslam Gholam-Hussein Mohseni-Ezhei, a graduate of Qom's Haqqani School, noted for its extremist position advocating violence against enemies and strict clerical control of society and government. The Ministry is very well funded and its charge, like that of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (the Pasdaran) is to guard the revolutionary Islamic Iranian regime at all costs and under all contingencies.
From the KGB playbook, VEVAK learned the art of disinformation. It's not so difficult to learn: tell the truth 80% of the time and lie 20%. Depending on how well a VEVAK agent wants to cover his/her tracks, the ratio may go up to 90/10, but it never drops below the 80/20 mark as such would risk suspicion and possible detection. The regime in Teheran has gone to great lengths to place its agents in locations around the world. Many of these operatives have been educated in the West, including the U.K. and the United States. Iranian government agencies such as embassies, consulates, Islamic cultural centers, and airline offices regularly provide cover for the work of VEVAK agents who dress well and are clean shaven, and move comfortably within our society. In this country, because of the severance of diplomatic relations, the principal site of VEVAK activities begins at the offices of Iran's Permanent Mission to the UN in New York.
Teheran has worked diligently to place its operatives in important think tanks and government agencies in the West. Some of its personnel have been recruited while in prison through torture or more often through bribery, or a combination of both. Others are Islamist revolutionaries that have been set up to look like dissidents - often having been arrested and imprisoned, but released for “medical reasons”. The clue to detecting the fake “dissident” is to read carefully what he/she writes, and to ask why this vocal “dissident” was released from prison when other real dissidents have not been released, indeed have been grievously tortured and executed. Other agents have been placed in this country for over twenty-five years to slowly go through the system and rise to positions of academic prominence due to their knowledge of Farsi and Shia Islam or Islamist fundamentalism.
One of the usual tactics of VEVAK is to co-opt academia to its purposes. Using various forms of bribery, academics are bought to defend the Islamic Republic or slander its enemies. Another method is to assign bright students to train for academic posts as specialists in Iranian or Middle East affairs. Once established, such individuals are often consulted by our government as it tries to get a better idea of how it should deal with Iran. These academics then are in a position to skew the information, suggesting the utility of extended dialogue and negotiation, or the danger and futility of confronting a strong Iran or its proxies such as Hizballah (Hezbollah). These academics serve to shield the regime from an aggressive American or Western policy, and thereby buy more time for the regime to attain its goals, especially in regards to its nuclear weaponry and missile programs.
MOIS likes to use the media, especially electronic media, to its advantage. One of VEVAK's favorite tricks is setting up web sites that look like they are opposition sites but which are actually controlled by the regime. These sites often will be multilingual, including Farsi, German, Arabic French, and English. Some are crafted carefully and are very subtle in how they skew their information (e.g., Iran-Interlink, set up and run by Massoud Khodabandeh and his wife Ann Singleton from Leeds, England); others are less subtle, simply providing the regime's point of view on facts and events in the news (e.g., www.mujahedeen.com or www.mojahedin.ws). This latter group is aimed at the more gullible in our open society and unfortunately such a market exists. However, if one begins to do one's homework, asking careful questions, the material on these fake sites generally does not add up.
Let's examine a few examples of VEVAK's work in the United States. In late October, 2005, VEVAK sent three of its agents to Washington to stage a press event in which the principal Iranian resistance movement, the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MeK), was to be slandered. Veteran VEVAK agent Karim Haqi flew from Amsterdam to Canada where he was joined by VEVAK's Ottawa agents Amir-Hossein Kord Rostami and Mahin (Parvin-Mahrokh) Haji, and the three flew from Toronto to Washington. Fortunately the resistance had been tracking these three, informed the FBI of their presence in Washington, and when the three tried to hold a press conference, the resistance had people assigned to ask pointed questions of them so that they ended the interview prematurely and fled back to Canada.
Abolghasem Bayyenet is a member of the Iranian government. He serves as a trade expert for the Ministry of Commerce. But his background of study and service in the Foreign Ministry indicates that Bayyenet is more than just an economist or a suave and savvy businessman. In an article published in Global Politician on April 23, 2006, entitled “Is Regime Change Possible in Iran?”, Bayyenet leads his audience to think that he is a neutral observer, concerned lest the United States make an error in its assessment of Iran similar to the errors of intelligence and judgment that led to our 2003 invasion of Iraq, with its less than successful outcome. However, his carefully crafted bottom line is that the people of Iran are not going to support regime change and that hardliner President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad actually has achieved greater popularity than his predecessors because of his concern for the problems of the poor and his fight for economic and social justice. To the naive, Bayyenet makes Ahmadinejad sound positively saintly. Conveniently overlooked is the occurrence of over four thousand acts of protest, strikes, anti-regime rallies, riots, and even political assassinations by the people of Iran against the government in the year since Ahmadinejad assumed office. So too, the following facts are ignored: the sizeable flight of capital, the increase in unemployment, and the rising two-figure rate of inflation, all within this last year. Bayyenet is a regime apologist, and when one is familiar with the facts, his arguments ring very hollow. However, his English skills are excellent, and so the naОve might be beguiled by his commentary.
Mohsen Sazegara is VEVAK's “reformed revolutionary”. A student supporter of Khomeini before the 1979 revolution, Sazegara joined the “imam” on his return from exile and served in the government for a decade before supposedly growing disillusioned.
He formed several reformist newspapers but ran afoul of the hardliners in 2003 and was arrested and imprisoned by VEVAK. Following “hunger strikes”, Sazegara was released for health reasons and permitted to seek treatment abroad. Although critical of the government and particularly of Ahmadinejad and KhameneМ, Sazegara is yet more critical of opposition groups, leaving the impression that he favors internal regime change but sees no one to lead such a movement for the foreseeable future. His bottom line: no one is capable of doing what needs to be done, so we must bide our time. Very slick, but his shadow shows his likely remaining ties to the MOIS.
http://www.ocnus.net/artman/publish/article_27144.shtml
Arrest of "spy" a sore point for 2 nations
http://www.e-ariana.com/ariana/eariana.nsf/allDocs/9D11F95951FD630D8725728700456514?OpenDocument
Arrest of "spy" a sore point for 2 nations
Chicago Tribune
02/19/2007
By Kim Barker
Afghans say he helped bin Laden cross border. Pakistan says that's
absurd. He first confessed but now says he's an innocent pharmacist.
KABUL, Afghanistan -- Afghan authorities announced a striking
development at a news conference in December: They had arrested a
Pakistani spy who confessed to smuggling Osama bin Laden into Pakistan
from Afghanistan in 2005, and they had a videotape of the confession
to prove it.
Yet, sitting in jail, the alleged spy, Sayed Akbar, denies it. He says
he is an innocent pharmacist from a Pakistani border town who was
mistakenly arrested by Afghan soldiers on his way to buy medicine for
his clinic.
Akbar's original story, tantalizing but uncorroborated, has become
another sore point in the prickly relationship between Afghanistan and
Pakistan, two U.S. allies that share a border but little else in the
war on terrorism in South Asia.
The two nations and their leaders appear stuck in a spiral of mistrust
and mutual accusations, while the porous border region remains a haven
for Taliban fighters bent on bringing down the Afghan government.
Pakistani officials dismiss the accusations against Akbar, and U.S.
officials doubt that he helped bin Laden. Afghan officials say Akbar,
38, is an example of how the Pakistani intelligence agency, the
Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, has supported terrorism in
Afghanistan.
In December, the spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai trumpeted
Akbar's arrest, naming him as a key link between Pakistani
intelligence and Al Qaeda. Afghan officials later gave the Tribune
access to Akbar in prison and allowed a reporter to view his
videotaped confession and his criminal file.
"This basically solves the enigma of why Osama bin Laden hasn't been
captured for so long--because he was protected," said a top Afghan
official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the subject's
sensitivity.
Pakistani authorities say the claim about Akbar is absurd. Tasneem
Aslam, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said the Pakistani
Embassy in Kabul has unsuccessfully sought access to Akbar since
learning about him in December. She suggested that he may have been
forced into giving the confession.
"This is a very, very wild and baseless allegation," Aslam said. "This
is somebody's imagination working overtime."
A U.S. military official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the
tale of Akbar was "not particularly credible." He said the U.S.
military had not interviewed Akbar.
But certain parts of Akbar's original videotaped story lend it
credibility. He accurately identifies the head of the ISI in
Pakistan's North-West Frontier province. The route he outlined also
indicated he knew the region well and which path would be best at that
time of year.
The Afghan intelligence official who interrogated Akbar said he
believed Akbar recanted because the Afghan government failed to honor
a promise--that Akbar's family would be moved to Kabul for safety
reasons.
No charges yet
Since his arrest 10 months ago, Akbar has been jailed. He has yet to
be charged, although Afghan law says he should have been charged
within two months of arrest.
Afghan intelligence sources acknowledge they have not followed up on
leads provided by Akbar, nor have they fully investigated his story.
They say they do not have the resources to investigate the claims, nor
the ability to travel into some regions they deem too dangerous.
"We will investigate, we will hear both sides, and then we will
decide," said Judge Mohammad Tayyeb, in charge of the primary court
for crimes against the country, who recently summoned Akbar for his
first court appearance. "This is a very important case for the
reputation of the court system of Afghanistan."
Bin Laden's whereabouts have long been a mystery. Some experts have
suggested that he has hidden out in Nuristan or in Kunar province,
also in eastern Afghanistan. In 2002, he allegedly showed up at a
wedding for a daughter in Barikot, about 4 miles from the Pakistan
border.
The Akbar case comes at a time when Afghan authorities have stepped up
their condemnation of the Pakistani intelligence service, which they
accuse of sheltering the Taliban.
In January, the Afghan intelligence agency released a videotaped
confession by Mohammed Hanif, an alleged spokesman for the Taliban who
had been captured. In the video, Hanif claimed the ISI helped the
Taliban and protected the Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, in
Quetta, Pakistan.
The ISI supported the Islamic fighters who drove the Soviet Union from
Afghanistan in 1989, and later supported the Taliban. It's not clear
how much Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf controls the ISI or the
spy agency's efforts in the tribal areas.
In the 31-minute videotape, Akbar seemed measured, calm and friendly,
gesturing with his hands and calling his Afghan interrogator "my
brother."
There were no visible bruises on Akbar in the videotape. He said he
spoke for a half-hour to bin Laden, who had been hiding in Nuristan
province, in the basement of the home of a commander from militant
group Hezb-e-Islami.
"I thought, this is the person the entire world is looking for," Akbar
says on the tape. "He looked weak, sick. He didn't look very strong."
According to Akbar's confession, the ISI asked him and another agent
to take bin Laden across the border in the Islamic holy month of
Ramadan, between Oct. 4 and Nov. 3, 2005.
He said he and an ISI agent drove a disguised bin Laden to a spot in
Kunar province, a Taliban stronghold. The team then walked, crossing a
river near the border on foot, according to Akbar's taped confession.
After delivering bin Laden to ISI officials in Pakistan's Chitral
region, Akbar said, he did not know what happened to the Al Qaeda
leader.
Denying any connection
In late December, Akbar spoke to the Tribune for more than two hours
in a grim concrete prison outside Kabul. The interview took place in
front of prison guards and the Afghan intelligence official who had
questioned him on the tape.
In the interview, Akbar seemed defiant and denied his earlier
confession. The more the Afghan intelligence official laid out his
case against Akbar, listing all the details in his confession, the
more Akbar leaned back in his chair and denied any connection with the
ISI.
In the jail, Akbar said he had never met bin Laden and called such
allegations "nonsense." He said he did not remember what he had said
in his videotaped confession--he only remembered the video camera.
"Maybe I was not in a proper mood, or maybe I was mentally ill," Akbar
said. "Maybe I was beaten to say this."
Al-Zawra Television Owner Denies Links to Al-Qa'ida
Al-Zawra Television, an Iraqi satellite channel that transmits from an unknown location on the Cairo-based Nilesat 7.0W and Riyadh-based Badr 26.0E, carries between 2007 and 2044 GMT on 16 February a recorded "message" by Al-Zawra owner Mish'an al-Juburi to Abu-Umar al-Baghdadi, the amir of the Islamic State of Iraq, identified by Al-Zawra as "leader of the Al-Qa'ida Organization in Iraq" regarding the "organization's attacks against leaders and heroes of the Iraqi resistance who refuse to pay allegiance to him, and the detonation of booby-trapped vehicles among Iraqi civilians."
Originally published on 2/16/2007 by Iraq - OSC Report in Arabic
Al-Juburi first explains that "I chose to communicate with Shaykh Abu-Umar and his mujahidin brethren in this manner so that I may convey my thoughts clearly and guarantee that I will be heard," and adds that "I am in no position to judge anyone's patriotism or jihad, but we pride ourselves on being servants of the Iraqi resistance, and we perhaps possess the means of delivering this message or conveying the feelings of a large number of our resisting brothers as well as society." He vows to be honest, trustworthy, and keen on the unity of the "mujahidin and resistors," and says that his message "is an honest and serious attempt to end the sedition and extinguish a fire I believe is imminent."
Al-Juburi says: "For the record, I wish to start by clearly stressing that the brothers in the Al-Qa'ida Organization, particularly the Arab mujahidin, were the first to confront the occupation in Iraq. I salute the memory of their martyrs, who fell while teaching the occupier brutal lessons. The heroic stances of Al-Qa'ida's mujahidin in Iraq against the American occupation encouraged everyone to enlist in the resistance, and the names and organizations appearing before you on Al-Zawra channel, well, I believe the start was with the brothers in the Al-Qa'ida Organization, and the operations are carried out by people who came to Iraq in pursuit of martyrdom and with honest intentions -- even the Al-Qa'ida suicide bomber who attacked my convoy in Bayji was perhaps led to believe that he would go to heaven if he killed me, but I forgive him and hope God judges him on his intentions."
Al-Juburi maintains that "despite the accomplishments of the brothers in Al-Qa'ida in their confrontation of the occupation, they have broken the back of national unity in Iraq, and have brought massive agony to the people of Iraq." He goes on to accuse "Israel and its agents" of blowing up civilian targets, and maintains that "the occupation, which wants to destroy Iraq's national unity and divide the country in to sectarian mini-states so that it may dominate the entire region, is perhaps too responsible and is a direct or indirect provocateur."
He holds Al-Qa'ida responsible for most civilian bombings that target "heavily populated areas that the organization believes to be predominantly Shiite," and deems attacks on Shiites as "crimes by all standards."
He says: "When bombs were detonated in, for example, predominantly Shiite neighborhoods or in crowded markets like those in Al-Kazimiyah, Al-Hillah, Karbala, or Al-Najaf, they provided justifications to the sectarian militias that too serve a foreign agenda. These sectarian and Safavid militias, which we absolve our Shiite brothers of any relation to -- and by Safavid we mean the Safavid political agenda in Iraq -- saw in each of these suicide bombings an excuse to head into Baghdad's Sunni neighborhoods dressed as policemen and soldiers, and with government support, and kidnap four, five, or 10 times the number of young men an unarmed people. When Baqir Sulagh Khisrawi was the interior minister, those abductees were taken to the Interior Ministry and executed there."
Al-Juburi accuses the government of "encouraging" sectarian militias to kill people on a first-name basis, meaning those fro m the opposing sect, by blaming Al-Qa'ida's attacks on Saddamists and Ba'thists instead of demanding action on the part of the countries that Al-Qa'ida's Arab fighters come from. He stresses that Iraq's Sunnis and "Arab" Shiites "do not condone and are not part of the bloody conflict in Iraq," and explains that the Shiite-Sunni conflict is between foreign powers, that Al-Qa'ida has a political agenda it wants to advance in Iraq, and that the sectarian militias, namely the Badr Corps, which he calls the "treason militia," and "Muqtada's militia [the Al-Mahdi Army]," were acting on considerations "that have nothing to do with the interests of the Iraqis."
Al-Juburi proclaims: "We will continue to confront the terrorism that targets Iraqis regardless of its source, even if it is the treason militia, and we will confront the terrorism that targets civilians regardless of its source, even if the Al-Qa'ida Organizations. We beseech you: The murders and bombings that target Iraqi civilians triggered an assault on national unity and will leave their mark on the future of Iraq. They have driven a wedge between the components of the Iraqi people, and we are all required to counteract this wedge."
He adds: "Some of the brothers in the Al-Qa'ida Organization have started killing brave and iconic figures in the resistance, why, because some of those in the Al-Qa'ida Organization, or what is known today as the Islamic State, want us to either pledge allegiance to the Iraqi Islamic state and its amir or to sit back, meaning that no one is allowed to operate under any jihadist resistance banner other than that of Al-Qa'ida."
Addressing "brother Shaykh Abu-Umar," Al-Juburi says: "I am of course no match to you in jurisprudence, but I wonder, how can you force us to pledge allegiance to a man whose real name we do not know? How can you ask us to pledge allegiance to a state whose ministers we do not know? How can you ask us to pledge allegiance to a state of unknown ministers, governors, leaders, or amirs -- a state with no names or locations? How can you ask us to pledge allegiance to a state that was announced without our knowledge? How can we pledge allegiance to the sectarian Iraqi Islamic state and at the same time fight, resist, and confront the regions project, deeming it a division of Iraq and hence rejecting it along with the concept of federalism?"
Al-Juburi maintains that we "reject the wilayat al-faqih [rule of the jurisconsult] the same way we reject the hegemony of sectarian parties in Iraq," and wonders how Iraqis are supposed to confront the "sectarian project" and the southern Shiite region while at the same time pledging allegiance to the Iraqi Islamic state in the Sunni triangle?
He asks Abu-Umar to explain the murders of two Sunni Imams, Umar al-Falahi of Al-Fallujah and Shaykh Muhannad al-Ghurayri of al-Qarmah , who he says were killed along with others simply for refusing to pledge allegiance to the Islamic state or for objecting to its tactics even though they were symbols of the pro-Sunni resistance, and accuses the organization of concealing the bodies of those it kills.
He explains that no messengers are being sent to Al-Qa'ida because one of its brigades in the Salah al-Din Governorate killed a messenger in the past.
Al-Juburi tells the tale of a man being ordered by Al-Qa'ida to turn over his son so that he may be killed for murdering an Al-Qa'ida member who, according to Al-Juburi, murdered resistance fighters and terrorized civilians, and asks: "Is this the state you want to establish? A state where people are killed without charges, investigations, judges, or anything of the sort? Is it religiously permissible for you to seize the weapons and munitions of resistance factions simply because they refuse to pledge allegiance to the Islamic state? Well, you did, and this is not right. I do not want to pledge allegiance to you, I am a resistor fighting the occupation, but I am not your partner in your sectarian fighting project or your murder of civilians. I cannot vow to kill soldiers, policemen, civilians, shoppers in Al-Shurjah and Al-Haraj markets - who goes to Al-Haraj market? People looking for second-hand clothes, does it make any sense that we blow up this market?"
He wonders how the Al-Qa'ida Organization can force people to recognize its Islamic state when it is thought to be responsible for the market bombings and sectarian killings, and says that the forced displacement of people in Baghdad was triggered by "actions that you are responsible for." Reflecting on the lack of basic services and food shortages in the "Islamic state's capital in Al-Ramadi," which he says the government has no access to, Al-Juburi maintains that pledging allegiance to such a state would be "suicide," and asks the organization if it believes that its anti-occupation resistance gives it the right to enslave people and force them to become citizens of its state.
On why he was prompted to address this message, Al-Juburi speaks of three police stations that Al-Qa'ida blew up in the past week in Al-Ramadi, Al-Dawrah, and Al-Hawijah - he admits that the Iraqi Government is a "sectarian and illegitimate government involved in sectarian murder," but says that Iraqi policemen joined the police when it was deemed permissible by religious fatwas [rulings] and argues that these policemen seek to uphold the law and "do not act against the resistance." He further defends the Iraqi police, and, while admitting that some militiamen dress up as policemen and commit crimes, insists that the policemen that were targeted did no such thing.
He says: "Unfortunately, Baqir Sulagh integrated Iraqi and non-Iraqi militiamen who have certain agendas and place loyalty to the sect before loyalty to the country into the Interior Ministry and issued them police uniforms when they are in fact sectarian gangs that kill people and provoke fierce and violent retaliations on your [Al-Qa'ida's] part. We can understand many of these actions, but even though we understand the moments of rage during which decisions were taken by both parties, we still condemn them and do not accept them."
He criticizes Al-Qa'ida's use of booby-trapped cars against police stations and its indiscriminate murder of policemen, be they good or bad, and, in defense of Iraqi policemen, says that "I in the Al-Zawra channel have pictures taken in the Al-Taji area of the bombardment of occupation forces that starred a policeman who was martyred." He goes on to list a number of patriot tribal leaders and notables whose murder at the hands of Al-Qa'ida turned the people and some resistance fighters against the organization, and pleads with the organization to release Shaykh Naji Jibarah for the sake of "burying the sedition between society and Al-Qa'ida" and warns of retaliation in the event of the Shaykh's death.
Al-Juburi says: "Shaykh Abu-Umar, you might not be aware of the actions of some brigades, and you perhaps do not forgive the murder of a resistor because he refused to stop fighting. You know as well as we do how many Mujahidin were killed in the past few days." He maintains that "one of the things that prompted me the most to send you this message was your murder of the late Namis Khadir Ali of Al-Hawijah," whom he says was a "resistance hero" who was killed and decapitated by Al-Qa'ida, and whose body was booby-trapped with explosives meant for family members that try to bury him. He asks: "What court issued this verdict? What information did you have about him? We will not allow this. Today you killed Namis, and if God grants you the strength, then tomorrow you will kill everyone. Unfortunately, I tell you that this approach will not be accepted."
He expresses his rejection of the Islamic state "in its current form," and says that an Afghanistan-style Islamic state in return for liberation is not acceptable.
He adds: "Why are Al-Qa'ida's operations not aired on Al-Zawra? Because I know that part of Al-Qa'ida's operations target civilians. How can I glorify - glorify those whose work I broadcast - an organization that kills my Iraqi brother because he is Shiite or non-Muslim, or because it believes him to be a soldier, policeman, or rival?"
Al-Juburi says: "We will not allow Iraq's transformation into a dangerous place that threatens the region's countries, and those brothers who come to you should pursue jihad in their own countries and not in ours if they wish to pursue acts beyond the resistance of the occupation." He maintains that "the Iraqi resistance is not in need of Arab volunteers," and says: "To our Arab brothers wishing to volunteer, we say this: We will defeat America in Iraq, and we will force it to retreat beyond the ocean. There is no way America can defeat us. I assure you that we can defeat the American occupation and cleanse our country of the filth of the devils through the strength of only the Iraqis, and through the confrontation of only the occupation and its agents."
In closing, he pleads with Al-Qa'ida to release all its captives and stop killing policemen, and asks Abu-Umar to stop the bombing of Iraqi civilians and the murder of Iraq's mujahidin, and to win the hearts of the people so they may pledge allegiance to him out of love, not fear, noting that alliances are being forged throughout Iraq against Al-Qa'ida.
OSC JN Bureau plans no further processing.
(3) Bolshevik newspaper, Krasnaya Gazeta, announcing the start of the Red Terror on 1st September, 1918.
We will turn our hearts into steel, which we will temper in the fire of suffering and the blood of fighters for freedom. We will make our hearts cruel, hard, and immovable, so that no mercy will enter them, and so that they will not quiver at the sight of a sea of enemy blood. We will let loose the floodgates of that sea. Without mercy, without sparing, we will kill our enemies in scores of hundreds. Let them be thousands; let them drown themselves in their own blood. For the blood of Lenin and Uritsky, Zinovief and Volodarski, let there be floods of the blood of the bourgeois - more blood, as much as possible. <<<
90 years later and it is still the battle cry for the communists.
SC, thank you for the additional information, I had not been to your first link before, but will be reading there again.
There is so much to learn and I know so little.
"Dzerzhinsky died of a heart attack just a day or so after an hours-long loud and angry harangue condemning some enemies of Stalin's."<<<
Now that is interesting, he was only 49, ahhh, but in Russia, it does not pay to talk loudly about ones enemies.
I had lightly followed the protests that Russia makes against their ex-countries that have wanted to get rid of the Russian statues that are still standing in their country.
Interesting, if one thinks of how many of the statues there are and of how hard the commies here fight to get our Crosses taken down.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAabbottL.htm
Lyman Abbott, The Cause and Cure of Anarchism (Outlook, 22nd February, 1902)
Anarchism is defined by E. V. Zenker as: "the perfect, unfettered self-government of the individual, and consequently the absence of any kind of external government." It rests upon the doctrine that no man has a right to control by force the action of any other man. Anarchism is defended on historic grounds: the evils are recited which have been wrought in human history by the employment of force compelling obedience by one will to another will, as they are seen in political and religious despotism and in the subjugation of women.
Anarchism is defended on religious grounds. Jesus Christ is cited as the first of anarchists; for did he not say, "Resist not evil: if one take away thy coat, give him thy cloak also; and if one smite thee upon the one cheek, turn to him the other also? What is this, we are asked, but a denial of the right to use force even in defense of one's simplest and plainest rights?
Socialism, which is curiously confounded by the indiscriminating with anarchism, is its exact opposite. Anarchy is the doctrine that there should be no government control; socialism is the doctrine that the government should control everything.
The place in which to attack anarchism is where the offences grow which alone make anarchism possible. Let us secure the just, speedy, and impartial administration of law; let us elect legislators who seek honestly to conform human legislation to the divine laws of the social order, without fear or favour. The way to counteract hostility to law is to make laws which deserve to be respected.
Iraqi MP on Baghdad Security Plan, Alliances With Iraqi Blocs, Al-Sadr, US Ties
Interview with Dr Haydar al-Abadi, member of the Political Bureau of Al-Da'wah Party and member of the Iraqi National Assembly, by Mina al-Uraybi, "during his visit to London;" date not given: "Al-Da'wah Party's Political Bureau Member Haydar al-Abadi Tells Al-Sharq al-Awsat: The Security Plan Is Not the Last Chance for the Iraqis, But Is Probably So for the Americans; Al-Sadr Feels He Is Pursued, and the Americans Want to Embarrass Him"
Originally published on 2/18/2007 by Al-Sharq al-Awsat (Internet Version-WWW) in Arabic
[Al-Uraybi] Are you satisfied with the political experience in Iraq since the fall of the former regime?
[Al-Abadi] We have to look at the political experience from the realistic and methodological angles. When we look at the results from the realistic angle, the results, after four years, are certainly not satisfactory. This evokes sadness. The Iraqi situation now is not good. We have daily killing and bombing and a hateful sectarian strife, which has regrettably hit the country. From the methodological aspect, the work that we embarked on; that is, the political process, was the only choice for the Iraqi people on the national level. The country was afflicted with occupation. This occupation was not with the permission of the Iraqi people. There was a US strategy, part of it related to Iraq and another part was larger than Iraq. The Iraqis found that their country was not under their own administration. It became under a foreign administration. They had to take back administration to get rid of the occupation. The only method on which the Iraqi political forces agreed is for the Iraqi people to determine their own fate. This had to happen through elections. Today, we have a constitutional Council of Representatives and a constitutional national unity government. We had no other way. The other ways that claimed to be fighting the occupier drowned the country in a bloodbath and are destroying everything the Iraqis are building on the pretext of fighting the occupier. They are heading toward complete chaos. Today, we are closer to the departure of the occupier from our land than the situation was four years ago. This may have been delayed due to the ongoing violence in Iraq. After the success of the second elections, terrorism has reached a dead end. All their attempts to stop the political process have failed. Al-Qa'ida had no choice but to leave Iraq, and this was suggested in some documents that we obtained, or to make one last attempt, which was the criminal action in Samarra to strike the Iraqis in the heart. The bombing of the two shrines (of Imam Al-Hadi and Imam Al-Askari) caused a reaction, whose motives I can understand. Yet, it is not understandable for this reaction to be as destructive. Regrettably, the Samarra bombing made people lose their minds. On the other hand, we hold the US forces partially responsible because they did not do anything. They allowed things to deteriorate to the point of no return. When displacement first started, it was programmed and studied by groups that wanted to take control of certain Shiite and Sunni areas. These groups used sectarianism in a hateful manner to advance certain political interests. I chaired a committee in the Iraqi parliament on the displaced, and we reached some key decisions to stop this process. We prepared a plan to enable their return, but regrettably the Iraqi and US security forces failed to deal with this file properly. What we have inherited now are years of killing and displacement.
Extremist elements pose a threat to Iraq. Extremism today is out to cancel the other. However, tomorrow, it will seek to cancel people from its own component. There is a vision now, which is one of the results of the political process, to eliminate the elements of this extremism. This does not mean killing people; it means changing them and preventing the daily killing and destruction. There should be a firm position. The Baghdad security plan is the key to this solution. It is not only a security plan. It is a political, economic, and development plan. Some political parties that did not get a share in the recent elections are taking part in the plan. Also, former Ba'thist sides, which turned against the Ba'th Party, are taking part in the plan. There is awareness that the plan is the key to Iraq's progress.
[Al-Uraybi] Can you explain to us how these parties, which are not part of the government, are taking part in the plan?
[Al-Abadi] The Baghdad security plan has several aspects. The security aspect is handled by the government forces. The economic aspect is a partnership between the government and the private sector. There is another aspect, which is the political/social aspect, in which government and other parties are involved. Here, it is difficult to distinguish between the political aspect and the social aspect. There are social and political activities. Take Al-Ghazaliyah, for example. Al-Ghazaliyah has parties, armed groups, and social components, some of which have loyalty to a certain party, while others do not have this loyalty. This led to the idea of involving these elements in the Baghdad security plan. I know some Ba'thist figures, who are not Saddamist. They believe in the principles of the Ba'th Party and argue that Saddam hijacked the Ba'th Party. We have no problem with the Ba'th as an ideology. We have a problem with the Ba'th that was led by Saddam to exclude others by means of physical liquidation.
[Al-Uraybi] There is a problem in Iraq, which is that authority in it is in the hand of those who take up arms, including the militias and armed men. How do we return to a political reality that is not based on weapons?
[Al-Abadi] This is a serious thing. Weapons should be for protecting the homeland and citizens. They should not be exploited for political goals or suppressing the other. We opposed Saddam because he did injustice to everybody. In the days of the opposition, we even used to say that Saddam was fair in his injustice, since he did injustice to everybody, including the sons of Al-Ramadi, Diyala, and Mosul, the Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiites. He did injustice to every area in Iraq. He used to justify anything to stay in power. This approach constituted exclusion by force. Iraq was not democratic before Saddam, but this level of suppression and violent exclusion did not exist in Iraq in the past. The armed groups that possess weapons in order to impose their viewpoint are as dangerous [as Saddam] and are headed in the same direction. These armed groups want to suppress the other by force and physical liquidation. We think that this is more dangerous to new Iraq, whether for the Kurds and the Arabs. This ideology was embodied, in its highest meaning, in the takfiris [those who hold other Muslims to be infidel], Al-Qa'ida, and the groups of the former regime, and so they became the number one enemies of Iraq. But those who believe in eliminating others by force also became the number two enemies of Iraq, and so those who carry out actions and those who react to these actions became a danger to Iraq. Consequently, any person who possesses these weapons is a danger to Iraq. There is a consensus on this at the National Assembly and among the political parties. This was expressed by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who said that he will not look at the background of any person who takes up arms, but that he will only look at whether this person abides by the law or not. We have a problem with the impression (in the Iraqi street). The Shiites have the impression that the security agencies are infiltrated by the takfiris. They have evidence of this, represented in the daily car bombings in the Shiite areas. The Sunnis have the impression that there are huge infiltrations of the security forces by the militias to kill Sunnis. We call this an impression. In the world of politics, an impression is sometimes more powerful than the truth. The government should change this impression and tell the citizen that it stands by him. It should also win the confidence of citizens and face all criminal elements.
This step will cause troubles for the government. We expect large-scale arrests of known figures from this or that party in the near future. This is a test to the government. I hope this plan [Baghdad security plan] will succeed. But this is not the last chance for the Iraqis. It might be the last chance for the Americans, but this is our homeland, and we will not escape from the homeland. If the security plan encounters problems in the beginning, we will learn from them; and if we fail in one of its stages, we will overcome the failure. The second option is to leave the citizen at the mercy of the criminal elements, and this is unacceptable. This might be the last stage for the Americans who are alien to Iraq and who have their own strategy. We, the Iraqis, cannot leave our country to the elements that are hostile toward Iraq.
[Al-Uraybi] There are many reports about the involvement of Al-Mahdi Army in the killing in Iraq. How are you going to confront it?
[Al-Abadi] Al-Sadr Trend is a political movement. It started as a popular trend. By nature--because it started out as a popular movement--there is a kind of lack of discipline in it. Al-Sadr Trend is a new trend in Iraq that was not allowed by the former regime. Iraq is in a state of huge disorder and undisciplined democracy. We are still in the early stages of building democratic institutions. Faced with this situation, it is difficult for us to hold the trend accountable for violations in it. This trend was treated unjustly in the early stages of its establishment, and it was excluded from political/social circles. So far, respect has not been restored for elements in this trend, which suffers from poverty and which was excluded from the fields of study and work. Our mission, as Iraqis, is to try and save those people.
As for Al-Mahdi Army, it is a group that emerged in a confrontation with the US forces, and there was a bloody struggle between them. The US side was unreasonable. It probably helped draw the trend into fighting. The US view of the trend was that they [its members] are extremists who can be eliminated. They [the Americans] did not imagine that they [members of the trend] had a popular agenda. Its armed wing is also undisciplined. That is why it was infiltrated. The proof of this is that Al-Sayyid Muqtada [al-Sadr] has said clearly that he is not responsible for all actions of Al-Mahdi Army and that he condemns them [some members of Al-Mahdi Army] and is not satisfied with those who do not obey him. He has provided the government with a list of the names of persons who carry out actions that contravene conscience and shari'ah. He has lifted his protection on them. Today, Al-Sadr Trend says that if the government has evidence against any element, it can arrest him in accordance with the laws.
[Al-Uraybi] What is your information on the whereabouts of Al-Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr. Has he really left Iraq?
[Al-Abadi] The Americans want to embarrass Al-Sayyid Muqtada and Al-Sadr Trend with this operation and to force him to appear and, consequently, expose himself to danger. Al-Sayyid Muqtada feels that he is probably pursued [by the US forces]. This feeling is justified. The US side has carried out such operations in the past, and not everybody on the US side is wise. The second point is that they want to bring him down. And if he does not appear, they want to tell his masses that this man fears for himself and has escaped. We do not have information whether he is in Iraq or not. We have not met with him and have not heard that anyone has met with him during the past three weeks. Whether this [escape] is true or not, there is no problem with his departure from Iraq, since he feels that his life is in danger. If he is outside Iraq, this does not mean that will not return to it. And if he is in Iraq, there is no problem with this because this is his country.
[Al-Uraybi] Is the strategic alliance between Al-Da'wah Party and Al-Sadr Trend still in place?
[Al-Abadi] We have strategic alliances with all the parties in Iraq, including the Unified Iraqi Coalition [UIC] and Al-Tawafuq [Front], especially the [Iraqi] Islamic Party [IIP]. We have an agreement on all details of the political plan and reconciliation. There might be disagreements on other details, and on the personal level between the prime minister and Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi. We regret the fact that the Iraqi political file should be captive to personal relations. We should avoid this. We have strategic alliances with the Kurds and secular blocs.
Concerning the strategic alliance with Al-Sadr Trend, yes [it exists] as a realistic thing. As a result of the first vote on the premiership, the UIC split into two groups. The first group voted for Adil Abd-al-Mahdi. The second group, including Al-Sadr Trend, voted for Ibrahim al-Ja'fari. However, this does not apply to Nuri al-Maliki, since everybody voted for him unanimously except for Al-Fadilah Party, which objected to quickly abandoning the nomination of Al-Ja'fari. This was not an objection to Al-Maliki, since Al-Sadr Trend did not decide to nominate Mr Al-Maliki.
[Al-Uraybi] Several weeks ago, we heard about a move by what was called then the "moderate forces" in Iraq to set up a new movement that groups the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution [in Iraq, SCIRI], the Kurdistan Alliance, and the IIP, but Al-Da'wah Party refused to join this movement. What is the reason for this refusal?
[Al-Abadi] The main idea was that we have a Council of Representatives and a political process, and there is a majority that is convinced of the political process and a minority that is not convinced of it. The minority has perhaps joined the political process enthusiastically, but without an adequate vision. Some others have perhaps joined the political process with a view to obstructing it from within. Consequently, political blocs at the Council of Representatives have said "we should ensure the success of the work of the Council of Representatives," especially after Al-Sadr Trend suspended its work in the council, creating fears that other small trends would suspend their work. For this reason, an alliance was formed between the groups of the blocs that are convinced of the political process. Regrettably, some people have portrayed this as a political issue and they formed an alliance between political forces by the name of "moderate forces" to counter the extremist forces. We considered this a major flaw in the political process, because when the political forces are classified in this manner, what should we call the others? There are forces that cannot be classified as extremist. Why should the Iraqis be classified on a moderate basis? We viewed this as part of political ploys that pose a danger to the security of Iraq and that return us to square one. The idea of a five-way alliance is now over.
[Al-Uraybi] What is the latest on national reconciliation?
[Al-Abadi] Political reconciliation is a cornerstone of our policy in Iraq. Without it, violence cannot be eliminated. This is a fundamental thing, and we are eager to go ahead with it. But it is not up to the required level and it requires further efforts. The government is enthusiastic, but it [reconciliation] cannot succeed without the enthusiasm of all political sides. The prime minister has sent envoys to Cairo, Amman, the United Arab Emirates, and other countries that I do not want to mention. The envoys have met with Ba'thist groups and other groups that are far from the Ba'th. The only party they did not meet with is Al-Qa'ida. The common denominator is that all of them say that they want a role in the political process. But the problem is that we should determine who is behind the violence in Iraq and to absorb those people. We should determine who is responsible for the acts of violence. So far, this has not been determined. Some of them claim that they represent the armed groups, but they turn out to be small, non-influential groups. Another problem is that some of the groups make impossible requests, such as canceling the political process so that we will go back to square one, and this is impossible.
[Al-Uraybi] What is the latest on amending the Iraqi constitution and when do you expect to finish this process?
[Al-Abadi] We are discussing changing the constitution. This is a constitutional matter, since the constitution includes a paragraph on amending the constitution. However, Al-Tawafuq Front has so far not presented a list of the required amendments and real ideas in order for us to move to the next stage. There are paragraphs that cannot be reversed, like federation, since federation is now a fait accompli. We have federation in Kurdistan, and it should be applied to the rest of the country. The second thing is that the identity of Iraq is a democratic identity and is for everybody. The rest of the paragraphs are subject to discussion, as part of national controls. We have held between 10-12 meetings to discuss amending the constitution. The United Nations is actively involved in this issue. We have sent a parliamentary delegation to Spain and Germany to examine the federal experience of the two countries. We have sent another delegation to India and Malaysia to examine their federal system. Therefore, it is possible to amend federation in Iraq. We expect a list of the proposed constitutional amendments to be presented to the National Assembly by May 2007.
[Al-Uraybi] Will there be ministerial changes in the near future?
[Al-Abadi] The prime minister is now ready for a cabinet change. He is waiting for the Council of Representatives to return from its annual recess to present the ministerial changes, which will not include broad changes. The problem faced by the prime minister is that he has not managed to reach an agreement on the changes with the political blocs. With the commencement of the Baghdad security plan, it is not possible to replace the ministers in charge of security files; that is, the ministers of defense, interior, and national security. When these ministers are not replaced, this cannot be considered a broad cabinet reshuffle. In view of the recent development, represented in the commencement of the Baghdad security plan, those ministers cannot be replaced, even if they made mistakes. This might be done next May. The current ministerial changes will include replacing the ministers of Al-Sadr Trend. Al-Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr has presented [a list of] nominees to the prime minister. There are also changes of ministers of the Iraqi List, led by Dr Iyad Allawi. So far, there has not been another ministerial change in the UIC, since the Kurds have refused to change their ministers.
Regrettably, there is now early talk about the cabinet reshuffle. This is a flaw. The early talk about the reshuffle makes the government lose its credibility. It has caused an unnecessary clamor.
[Al-Uraybi] There seemed to be coolness between Prime Minister Al-Maliki and US President George Bush, especially with Al-Maliki's strong statements toward the US President. Are these disagreements over?
[Al-Abadi] There are internal Iraqi and American political considerations. We in Iraq are concerned with having good relations with all countries, especially the United States. We do not want to create a crisis without any reason. Before the last US [midterm] elections, the US President was convinced of the [political] process in Iraq. But after the recent elections and the victory of the Democrats, the internal US political considerations changed and the US President had to make statements to satisfy his domestic audience. We were caught in the middle, and this is something on which we cannot keep silent. The prime minister told the Americans: I also have internal considerations. There are big US mistakes in Iraq. We have criticized them because at a time when they send forces to Iraq, they disagree on them, and this affects us. The US army either withdraws its forces and ends the issue, or the Americans send the forces and end the issue. The Iraqi issue cannot be captive to the domestic US situation. The Americans know this now, but I think there is still a feeling of bitterness between the two sides. There are constant contacts between the Iraqi and US leaderships and there is a convergence of interests between the two sides. A safe Iraq is in Washington's interest. For us, the Iraqis, this is our country and its stability is in our interest.
: London Al-Sharq al-Awsat (Internet Version-WWW) in Arabic -- Influential Saudi-owned London daily providing independent coverage of Arab and international issues; editorials reflect official Saudi views on foreign policy. URL: http://www.asharqalawsat.com/
Muslim husband who killed his wife and children because of their Western ways
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article2290050.ece
Muslim husband who killed his wife and children because of their
Western ways
By Ian Herbert
Published: 21 February 2007
Mohammed Riaz made every conceivable attempt to prevent his wife and
daughters enjoying their Westernised lifestyle. He destroyed their
clothes - modest by Western standards but tight fitting by his own -
when they came out of the wash and he railed against plans to allow
alcohol at his terminally ill son's 18th birthday party - which had
been
brought forward because of his prognosis.
Increasingly alienated and in despair over the illness of his son,
Adam,
the labourer killed his wife and four daughters by throwing petrol over
them as they slept and igniting it.
At the inquest in Blackburn, Lancashire, yesterday the coroner, Mike
Singleton, recorded a verdict that Caneze Riaz, 39, and her four
daughters, Sayrah, 16, Sophia, 15, Alicia, 10, and Hannah, three, were
unlawfully killed at their terrace home in Accrington, and that Mr
Riaz,
who died in hospital two days after the fire, took his own life. Adam
died six weeks later.
Police investigations revealed how estranged Mr Riaz, a traditionalist
and a practising Muslim who grew up in the North West Frontier Province
of Pakistan, had become from his vivacious wife, a high-profile
community worker who had co-founded the local Aawaz women's group,
mentored teenage girls at a high school in nearby Rishton, and was a
school governor and board member on several diversity groups.
Mrs Riaz, whose father married an English woman after becoming one of
the first Asian men to emigrate to the area in the 1960s, was sent back
to Pakistan for 15 years after completing primary school, but she
returned in the early 1990s with Mr Riaz, with whom she had an arranged
marriage. The children flourished in Britain. The eldest daughter,
Sayrah, was a "second mother" to her sisters, according to the family,
and had a passion for fashion design; Sophia, 13, loved rap music and
wanted to be an MC, while Alicia was the closest to her father. She
embraced Asian culture the most and was a regular at the mosque.
While their mother thrived, their father struggled to find employment,
eventually working for a plastic bag manufacturer in Blackburn. Their
relationship had deteriorated rapidly after the death of Mrs Riaz's
father, in 2003, and her husband had taken to sleeping downstairs. The
pressures on their relationship were made worse when Adam, who had
moved
in with his uncle, was diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma, an aggressive
form of cancer. Doctors said he would live only six months.
"[It meant] the financial situation was bad," said Det Supt Mick
Gradwell, of Lancashire Police. "A lot of money was being spent on
presents for Adam as he was coming to the end of his life. They were
spending a lot more than they earned - at Caneze's will, not
Mohammed's."
The pressures drove Mr Riaz to drink heavily. Sclerosis of the liver
was
found after his death. On their last afternoon, Mr Riaz saw his wife
being dropped off after enjoying a meal with friends in Manchester, but
police say there was no suggestion she was involved in a relationship
with anyone else.
Early on 1 November last year, Mr Riaz decided the pressures were too
much. As his wife and daughters slept in three upstairs bedrooms, he
threw petrol over them and trailed more around the house, then lit
three
fires.
Police believe his wife awoke and may have tried to throw one of the
two
petrol cans he used away from her bed. But she died almost immediately.
Mr Riaz stood downstairs and waited for the flames to come down and
engulf him. When they didn't, he ran back upstairs through a wall of
fire and was found by firefighters in the bathroom. He died of 65 per
cent burns and smoke inhalation.
Barry Khanan, 38, Mrs Riaz's brother, said her alienation from Mr Riaz
was a result of "the different ways in which they approached their
lives". He said: "She had become frustrated with his lack of emotional
support and involvement throughout Adam's illness. Caneze was outgoing
and wanted to better herself. Her husband was more withdrawn. Words
cannot express how we feel about the man we believe killed our family."
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/terrorism.php?id=748157
Exclusive: Europe's Black- Red Alliance: Part 1 of 3
Adrian Morgan
Author: Adrian Morgan
Source: The Family Security Foundation, Inc.
Date: February 20, 2007
What happens when radical Islamists team up with Leftists to expand their political power across the West? In short, democracy is eroded as these Islamists have their own clear-cut agendas. FSM's Adrian Morgan explains.
Europe's Black- Red Alliance: Part 1 of 3
By Adrian Morgan
In 2004, David Horowitz published Unholy Alliances: Radical Islam and the American Left, a seminal work based on the author's 50-year experience of the American Left. Since the book was written, the links between Islam and the left have become stronger, and not just in the United States. The global anti-war movements have naturally forged alliances between leftists and Islamists- in short, a Black-Red Alliance.
One doesn’t need to look very hard to find evidence of this alliance- it permeates every aspect of European politics today. Scratch beneath the surface of any Leftist organization and you’re likely to find a radical Islamist movement scratching back. Behind every anti-war movement you’ll find support for Palestinian terrorists and Islamic Jihad.
Take Britain’s Respect Party, for instance. This group, which was founded on January 25, 2004 from the ranks of the Stop the War Coalition, is headed by the notorious showman, George Galloway, its only elected member of parliament. Respect encourages its members to also belong to other political groups, namely the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), the Muslim Association of Britain and the Muslim Council of Britain.
The SWP has always demonized Israel, and their involvement in Respect has led to the new party's official policy being staunchly anti-Israeli: "We support the call for a boycott of Israeli goods and services, of tourism to Israel, and of academic, sporting and cultural links with Israeli bodies." One of Respect's senior figures, Yvonne Ridley, told students at Imperial College in February 2006 that "if there was any Zionism in the Respect Party they would be hunted down and kicked out. We have no time for Zionists." She described Israel as "that disgusting little watchdog of America that is festering in the Middle East."
Ridley, a convert to Islam, told Muslims in East London on June 7, 2006, that they should stop cooperating with police. Ridley's bizarre trajectory from Christian Sunday school teacher to Islamist will be discussed in a later article, but her website has a book list, which is compiled "[i]n association with Maktabah, on a monthly basis." Maktabah, an Islamic bookstore, states on its home page: "Due to unforeseen circumstances, we are unable to process any online or telephone orders for approx. 28 days."
Why should Maktabah be unable to process orders? The Maktabah bookshop in Birmingham was recently raided by anti-terror police in connection with a plot to kidnap and behead a British Muslim soldier. In 1999, Maktabah published a book on Kashmiri jihad, "The Army of Madinah in Kashmir" written by Esa al-Hindi. Hindi is in fact Dhiren Barot, who on November 7, 2006, was sentenced to 40 years in jail for plots to attack targets in Britain and the USA.
These targets included the Prudential building in Newark, the Citigroup building in New York and others. In April 2001, Barot had taken video footage of the World Trade Center. As his camera focused on the towers, he turned the camera, so they lay horizontal in the frame of view. In another clip, he again turned the camera on its side when taking a video the World Trade Center, and he can be simultaneously heard making the sound of an explosion.
Yvonne Ridley is no stranger to terrorists. In 2004, she described Abu Hamza al-Masri, the hook-handed cleric, as "quite sweet really." This was before Hamza was jailed for seven years on February 7, 2006, for inciting murder of Jews, Hindus and non-Muslims.
Also, the first of Ridley's three husbands, Daoud Zaaroura, had been a colonel in the terrorist Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO).
The Stop the War Coalition, from which the Respect Party grew, is dominated by leftists. Its "convener" is Lindsey German, who is on the central committee of the SWP and has stood a parliamentary candidate for the Respect Party. In July, 2004, she explained the Stop the War Coalition's approach to Muslims, claiming they were poor victims, who needed her condescending middle class protection: "It should be a badge of honour to those of us on the left that a group of people who face discrimination and victimisation should look to organisations like Stop the War Coalition to help defend them - and that the overwhelming majority of those so politicised do not turn to fundamentalist groups but to socialists, trade unionists and peace campaigners."
She complained then that the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) was under attack, along with Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the "spiritual leader" of the Muslim Brotherhood, who has justified terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians. MAB has strong links with the Muslim Brotherhood, being founded in 1997 by Kamal Tawfik el-Helbawy, a member of the Brotherhood. Mohammed Kassem Sawalha, a senior member of the MAB, is not only linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, but was also a former fundraiser for the terrorist group Hamas. In the West Bank, he was known as “Abu Abada.”
The Muslim Brotherhood has made deals with leftists in Egypt, the country where it was founded in 1928. In 1987 the Brotherhood forged an alliance with the Socialist Labour Party and the Liberal Socialist Party, called the Labour Islamic Alliance. The Alliance won 60 seats in the Egyptian elections that year, with 37 of these belonging to the Brotherhood's representatives.
The Muslim Association of Britain, with leaders such as Azzam al-Tamimi support terrorist operations in Israel, is happy to court the left to serve its own political ends. On February 16, the first major Stop the War march took place in London, organized with the help of the Muslim Association of Britain. Though the protesters were complaining about the impending Iraq invasion, which followed a month later, official banners at the march read: "No war on Iraq - freedom for Palestine."
The notion of Palestinian "victimhood" has been a keystone of leftist and Islamist ideology for more than three decades, coupled with a jealous contempt for America and Israel. The 2004 rally had influential leftists speaking, such as playwright Harold Pinter, who claimed America was "a country run by a bunch of criminal lunatics."
The Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party has made ridiculous gestures of solidarity with its Muslim affiliates, garnering scorn from Marxist members of the left. At one demonstration outside the Israeli Embassy in London, a white female SWP organizer urged non-Muslim women to cover their heads with scarves, "to show respect" at a demonstration which was "mostly Muslim."
Three days before 9/11, the SWP published an article which claimed the Taliban made women remain secluded at home "as a means of protecting them. At an anti-war meeting in Birmingham, SWP members bowed down to the bigotry of Muslim members by banning an apostate from Islam from attending. At another anti-war rally at Trafalgar Square, the SWP encouraged segregation of secular men and women, in deference to the Muslims present. This behavior led Marxist Sean Mantegna to describe the SWP as "demoralised Guardian readers with headscarves."
The theme of the so-called "Black Red Alliance" was discussed by Douglas Davis in the Spectator (also available here). He noted that Spark, the journal of the Socialist Labour Party, run by former miner Arthur Scargill, had called Asif Hanif, a young Islamist from Britain's Al-Muhajiroun group, as a "hero of revolutionary youth." On April 30, 2003, Hanif killed three Israelis and wounded 60 others in a suicide attack on Mike's Bar on the Tel Aviv seafront.
Davis noted that in August 2002, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al Qaeda's deputy leader, had urged British Muslims to seek alliances among "any movement that opposes America, even atheists." Abu Hamza had said to his followers: "We say to anyone who hates the Americans and wants to throw the Jews out of Palestine - Ahlan wa Sahlan (welcome). The Prophet teaches that we could ally ourselves even with the atheists if it helps us destroy [the] enemy."
The union of Islam and the left is celebrated in France by Olivier Besançonneau, leader of the French Trotskyites. He said of Muslims: "Are these not the new slaves? Is it not natural they should unite with the working class to destroy the capitalist system?" The French Communist Party commissioned a study to examine the electoral potential of forging alliances with Muslim groups. Already, leftist French groups such as the Revolutionary Communist League (Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire) and Workers' Struggle (Lutte Ouvri ère) have allied themselves with Islamists to gain seats in the European Parliament.
The language of the proponents of the Black-Red Alliance is confrontational when dealing with valid criticisms of Islamists and Muslim extremists. The main term used to silence criticism is "Islamophobe." In Britain, a website has been in existence for more than a year, calling itself Islamophobia-watch. This site is run by two individuals. One is Eddie Truman, who is both a member of Britain's Communist Party and spokesman of the Scottish Socialist Party. The main writer, who describes critics of Islamist radicalism as "right-wing racists" and "Islamophobes," calls himself Martin Sullivan. His real identity is Bob Pitt, the formerly secretary of the Workers Revolutionary Party.
Pitt's ranting on this website praises leftists such as Ken Livingstone, who exemplifies the stance of the Black-Red Alliance. Livingstone's support for Yusuf al-Qaradawi is mirrored on Islamophobia-watch.
Individually, the parties within the Stop the War Coalition or Respect would stand little chance of getting elected. United, they actually wield political influence. They have also made common cause with Black-Red allies from other countries. In December 2002, before the March 19 invasion of Iraq, a meeting was convened in Egypt which brought international leftists and Islamists to the same table. The meeting resulted in the first Cairo declaration "against U.S. Hegemony and War on Iraq and In Solidarity with Palestine." The declaration included a proposal to send “human shields” to Iraq.
In December 2003, a second Cairo declaration was announced the Black-Red Alliance would continue the "pursuance of the struggle to support the unified international front against imperialism and capitalist globalization."
The naive arguments of these leftists would be risible, were it not for the fact that now, as the Iraq War shows no sign of an imminent conclusion, their views are increasingly being heard. The spokespeople of the Black-Red Alliance are edging further into the mainstream politics of both Europe and America.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Adrian Morgan is a British based writer and artist who has written for Western Resistance since its inception. He also writes for Spero News. He has previously contributed to various publications, including the Guardian and New Scientist and is a former Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Society.
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http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/terrorism.php?id=701403&PHPSESSID=87e07ef2975275c3f2854d6a64f0a67f
Exclusive: CUBAZUELA -- New Castroite Face of "Death to America" Terrorism
Jim Guirard
Author: Jim Guirard
Source: The Family Security Foundation, Inc
Date: February 5, 2007
While the global war against Jihadism is growing, another fascism is spreading in our own back yard under the umbrella of Venezuela and the legacy of Fidel Castro. FSM Contributing Editor Jim Guirard explains its dangers.
CUBAZUELA -- New Castroite Face of "Death to America" Terrorism
By Jim Guirard
A major January 27, 2007 editorial in the Washington Post, which is normally oblivious to Leftist threats to US national security, was entitled "Venezuela's Satellites." Correctly, it painted a dangerous picture of the rabid anti-Americanism which has spread in recent years from communist Cuba to three neo-Socialist regimes in South and Central America.
With Castro's Cuba still serving as their ideological base but with Hugo Chavez's Venezuela now serving as the BIG OIL financier of this fascist-Left foursome, the Post's editorial might better have been titled "Cubazuela's Empire" -- comprised of the Cuban motherland and the copy-cat (and newly renamed) client states of Hugo Chavez's Cubazuela, Daniel Ortega's Cubaragua and Evo Morales' Cubalivia.
Even in normal times this would be worrisome news. But far worse during a Global War on Terrorism is the fact is that all of these Castroite regimes have brotherly "Death to America" relationships with the murderous likes of Iran, Syria, North Korea, al Qaeda, Hizballah and every other anti-Western entity on the planet. And add to this dark cloud the large weapons purchases now being made from both Russia and China, as well.
As "President For Life" Fidel Castro prepares to exit the scene after almost 50 years of single-party tyranny, he leaves a 70-percent Black Cuban dystopia of egalitarian poverty and silent suffering -- except, of course, for his and half-brother Raul's communist nomenclatura (Party bigwigs) whose all-White governing junta is still the Soviet era Politburo.
And as Fidel's "People's Paradise" baton is passed to Comrade Chavez, Horrible Hugo's own "Socialism or Death" and "President for Life" and "Death to America" and "Bush is the Devil" rantings are setting the scene for his people to suffer exactly the same torments that a half century of fascist-Left Fidelismo has brought to the Cuban people.
Eye-opener -- The Cuba-Chile Comparison
The extent of this socio-economic and civil liberties tragedy for the Cuban people since 1960 can best be understood by a detailed comparison between what has happened in Cuba and in Chile during these almost five decades.
From a roughly equal standing in most relevant factors (gross national product, personal income, housing, retirement security, property ownership, capital investment, human rights, manufacturing, agriculture, trade and commerce, etc.) a free-enterprise and quasi-welfare-state Chile has achieved three or four times the socio-economic well-being of a "socialism or death" Cuba.
Those naïve souls who excuse this half century of brutality and deprivation by citing Cuba's grassroots literacy program and broad-based (but largely rudimentary) health services should be forced to admit that two of Nazi Germany's major prewar energizers involved the lockstep efficient education of "Hitler Youth" and the physical fitness of the entire German population -- all the better to serve the anticipated "Thousand Year Reich," of course.
As Dr. Enrique Canton and Dr. Sergio de Paz of the Florida-based Commission of Studies for the Freedom of Cuba have observed: "... education and health are used in the island-prison as implacable instruments of ideological, mental and psychological control of the unfortunate citizens."
These same deadly comparisons will in due course apply to a socialist and increasingly "communoid" (communist-like) Cubazuela, as well -- though the process of deterioration will be masked and somewhat delayed by that former democracy's enormous "nationalized" income from oil exports.
Finally, there is an easy way to confirm both the accuracy and the street-corner viability of the new "Cubazuela" label for this rapidly disappearing Latino democracy -- which is even now being ruled almost entirely (and "legally" so, according to a unanimous vote of the lap-dog Congress) by Presidential Fiat, which is nothing but a euphemism for dictatorship.
Simply take time to Google-search the new label and observe how persuasively and how widely it is already spreading in both English-language and Latino commentary.
.FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Jim Guirard was longtime Chief of Staff to former US Senators Allen Ellender and Russell Long. His new TrueSpeak Institute is devoted to truth-in-language and truth-in-history in public discourse. Justcauses@aol.com
© 2003-2007 FamilySecurityMatters.org All Rights Reserved
http://www.google.com/search?q=Cubazuela&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Death+to+America%22+Terrorism&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
http://www.google.com/search?q=Cubazuela%27s+Empire&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
[This you need to read on the site, it is full of links to "the rest of the story" and connections that you will not be happy with...granny]
http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/gaffney/070220
Khan job
Frank Gaffney
Frank Gaffney
February 20, 2007
The casual observer might think nothing of the candidacy of a fellow named Suhail Khan for election to one of two open seats on the Board of Directors of the American Conservative Union — the political Right's largest and most influential grassroots umbrella organization. Certainly, for most Americans, the man's faith would be of no interest. If the fact that Khan is an adherent to Islam were even known, it probably would be seen as an asset — another Muslim-American seeking to become more involved in the political process just like, for example, Rep. Keith Ellison, the Muslim convert who recently won a Minnesota seat in the House of Representatives.
Something else appears to be at work here, however. The tip-off is the fact that anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, who sits on the ACU Board, is promoting Khan's candidacy. Even that association, however, could be construed as nothing more than a calculated effort by a skillful conservative operative to insinuate a reliable ally into a useful post as the former struggles to overcome the damage done to his reputation and influence — and that of the Republican Party — by his scandalous collaboration with convicted felon Jack Abramoff.
Unfortunately, there seems to be another and more insidious motivation for the Khan candidacy — one of a piece with a longstanding, if largely hidden, Norquist agenda that I first documented in these pages over three years ago. In a 12,000-word report titled "A Troubling Influence," published on December 9, 2003 with a validating introduction by David Horowitz, I described the nature and extent of Norquist's involvement in a political influence operation in the service of a number of Mr. Ellison's co-religionists. Most, like Suhail Khan, have troubling ties to individuals and organizations with well-established sympathies for the ideologues known as Islamists. Some of the latter have been directly tied to terrorism.
An Incomplete Resume
continues.............
http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/vernon/070219
The Ted Kennedy / Jimmy Carter KGB connections
Wes Vernon
Wes Vernon
February 19, 2007
The late Reed Irvine, founder of Accuracy in Media, a few years ago labeled as "The Scandal of the Century" the revelation that Harry Hopkins, alter ego of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was a Soviet agent. In the interest of space and focus, this column will resist the temptation to speculate on what Senator Joseph McCarthy would have done with that information had it been known at the time of his post-World War 2 investigations of Communist infiltration in the U.S. government.
Actually, there is even more to the story of "a conspiracy so immense [to use one of McCarthy's terms]." When he uttered those words, he didn't know the half of it.
Double-dealing
There is now evidence that in a later era, a former president and a sitting United States senator may have collaborated or attempted to collaborate with our Cold War enemy, the Soviet Union.
This writer was deeply disturbed when reading in Human Events of December 8, 2003, an article spotlighting treachery. The piece was authored by Herbert Romerstein — intelligence professional in both the executive and congressional branches of government. It was he who earlier — in his book The Venona Secrets — had found the "smoking gun" on Hopkins.
In the late 2003 article, Romerstein updated his intrepid investigation of betrayal and loose security in high places by citing a document from the Soviet archives. A KGB report to the Soviet hierarchy revealed that "In 1978, American Senator Edward Kennedy requested the assistance of the KGB to establish a relationship" between America's sworn enemy and a firm owned by former Senator John Tunney (D-Calif.).
Undermining Carter
A later KGB report to the Soviet bosses revealed that on March 5, 1980, Tunney met with the KGB in Moscow on behalf of Senator Kennedy. Tunney expressed Kennedy's opinion that "nonsense about the military threat and Soviet ambitions for military expansion in the Persian Gulf....was being fueled by [President Jimmy] Carter, [National Security Advisor Zbignew] Brzezinski, the Pentagon, and the military industrial complex."
At that time, Carter was running for re-election, and Kennedy was challenging him in the Democrat primaries. That the Massachusetts senator would in effect carry his campaign to the secret police of a hostile foreign power is a back-stabbing scandal of considerable magnitude.
It is relevant (though by no means exculpatory on Kennedy's part) to note that this was at a time when Carter himself, after spending three years dismissing "the inordinate fear of communism," had (temporarily, at least) come to his senses because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. It seems Kennedy was sneaking behind the back of a sitting president and encouraging an enemy foreign power to undermine that president who — by the way — was of the senator's own political party.
Thus, there was no line drawn between domestic political opposition on the one hand, and sworn enemies of this country on the other. Kennedy undercutting Carter's foreign policy? That is somewhat ironic (more on that below).
Undermining Reagan
The Kennedy/KGB caper is explored in considerable detail in the recently-released book The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the fall of Communism.
Fast forward to 1983-84. At that time, President Ronald Reagan was pulling every back channel string to bring down the Soviet Union and avert a nuclear showdown. What the president apparently did not know was that Senator Kennedy was contacting the enemy to throw sand in the gears of America's foreign policy.
Authored by Paul Kengor, The Crusader informs us of more Soviet documents indicating the senator from Massachusetts again sent his friend John Tunney to Moscow to offer assistance in the Soviet propaganda war against America. Reagan had intended to deploy Pershing missiles in Western Europe (in an effort to encourage the Soviets to remove their intermediate range nuclear missiles from Eastern Europe). The Gipper's proposal to then Soviet dictator Yuri Andropov was direct: Remove your missiles from Eastern Europe and we will not deploy our missiles in Western Europe.
The international left would hear none of it, even though the Reagan "warmongering" proposal was rooted in offers made years earlier by President Carter and West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt.
Remember the "freeze" movement?
Prompted by Soviet string-pullers, and aided by what some have called Moscow's "useful idiots," radicals from a-to-z staged massive demonstrations — as Kengor puts it — "extending from London to Bonn to New York." He might have added "and to Washington" where this reporter (then a correspondent for CBS Radio) covered a huge "nuclear freeze" rally at the west front of the Capitol building. Speakers included many of the useful mistaken (to use the kinder term) on Capitol Hill.
Ultra-"confidential" message
Kengor writes that "the most intriguing opposition to Reagan's nuclear policies has sat for decades in the Soviet archives." According to "a highly sensitive KGB document," KGB boss Victor Chebrikov wrote to Andropov, "On May 9-10 of this year [1983], Senator Edward Kennedy's close friend and confidant J. Tunney was in Moscow. The senator urged Tunney to convey [a] message through confidential contacts...to Andropov."
In order to advance the Kennedy/Soviet mutual interests (getting Reagan to back off from missile deployment and/or defeating Reagan's re-election bid), Kennedy suggested the Soviets — "should consider inviting the senator to Moscow for a personal meeting in July of this year," thereby arming "Soviet officials with explanations regarding problems of nuclear disarmament so they may be better prepared and more convincing during appearances in the USA."
Just to give the proposed meeting in Moscow a thin public-relations sheen of "bipartisanship," Kennedy had helpfully offered to bring along liberal Republican Senator Mark Hatfield of Oregon. Kennedy and Hatfield had collaborated on a 1982 book urging a "nuclear freeze."
Offering Soviets "pointers" on propagandizing Americans
The KGB memo continued that "in order to influence Americans, it would be important to organize in August-September of this year, televised interviews with Y.V. Andropov in the USA. A direct appeal by the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to the American People will, without a doubt, attract a great deal of attention and interest in the country. The senator is convinced that this would receive maximum resonance in so far as television is the most effective method of mass media and information."
This part of the memo is also very instructive: "If the proposal is recognized as worthy, then Kennedy and his friends will bring about suitable steps to have representatives of the largest television companies in the USA contact Y.V. Andropov for an invitation to Moscow for the interview. Specifically, the president of the board of directors of ABC, Elton Raul [sic] and television columnists Walter Cronkite and Barbara Walters would visit Moscow. The senator underlined the importance that this initiative should be seen as coming from the American side."
How long has this been going on?
Reading this stuff and recalling all the siren songs on TV throughout the Cold War about how we would have "world peace" if we were just "reasonable" with the peace-loving Soviets, you have to wonder how many other secret — and possibly successful — offers like this were made over decades to aid and abet Moscow's butchers in their efforts to schmooze Americans.
Kennedy's valentine to Andropov
Again from the KGB document: "Kennedy is very impressed with Y.V. Andropov and other Soviet leaders, who expressed their commitment to heal international affairs, and improve understandings between peoples."
Kengor opines, "If the memo is in fact an accurate account of what transpired, it constitutes a remarkable example of the lengths to which some on the political left, including a sitting U.S. senator, were willing to go to stop Ronald Reagan." Given that the only possibly more credible evidence would have to involve either a signed confession or an actual videotape of Kennedy giving instructions to Tunney and of Tunney talking to the KGB, it is reasonable to say the burden of proof is on Kennedy's back, not Kengor's or mine. The author of The Crusader adds "if the Kremlin never developed a formal axis with Kennedy, it at least sensed it had a blistering ally to assist its PR campaign against Ronald Reagan and his policies."
So why the irony that Kennedy had also undercut Carter?
At different times, Jimmy Carter appears to have been on opposite ends of the Soviet propaganda effort. While it is true that, during his time in the White House, he had been undermined by Senator Kennedy, Carter — as an ex-president — later offered his own encouragement to the Soviets in their drive to rid the country of President Reagan.
A visit to the Soviet embassy
In his 2002 book, Reagan's War, Peter Schweizer cites the diaries of longtime Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin (which have also been reviewed by this writer) to report the following: "Former president Jimmy Carter dropped by Soviet ambassador Dobrynin's residence on a day late in January 1984 to discuss the state of the world. Carter was concerned about Reagan's defense buildup, Dobrynin recalled. The former president went on to explain that Moscow and the world would be better off with someone else in the White House. Otherwise, 'there would not be a single agreement on arms control, especially on nuclear arms, as long as Reagan was in power.'"
Moscow derived encouragement from this and similar anti-Reagan whisperings in Soviet ears from then House Speaker Tip O'Neil and liberal Republican Senator Chuck Percy.
If they were called on the carpet for this (and no one has done that yet), these politicians would use the "working for world peace" defense. That excuse might work for a brainwashed college student. But for elected officials? Grownups? We are all familiar with the good intentions that pave the road to Hell.
The bottom line
On February 8 of this year, there appeared in the Washington Times, an op-ed by a retired CIA analyst. His byline was "John Smith" — a pseudonym (there are some pretty vengeful people in upper levels at the CIA). His article raises the question: "Why would a U.S. Senator, the brother of a beloved U.S. president, conspire with the Soviets against his own country?"
"Smith" goes on to note the Soviets and the KGB were "nothing if not thorough. Visitors to Moscow, especially important visitors, could count on total and constant surveillance, both audio and visual." That would include "meetings, private conversations, bedrooms, and even bathrooms. The Soviets were masters in using any information that was acquired to manipulate or even blackmail the victim."
The onetime CIA analyst goes on to add that "Mr. Tunney [later] said that he had indeed contacted the Soviets on behalf of several U.S. Senators — not just Mr. Kennedy. So, the question is, did some of the Democratic Party leadership offer to work with the Soviet KGB and against the United States on other fronts? How many [politicians] were compromised and later blackmailed? Lastly, if they were controlled by the Soviets, are they now 'influenced' by Russia? Inquiring minds want to know."
The bottom line, then, according to Smith, is that "if there is any shred of truth in these documented stories, the senator from Massachusetts, as well as other compromised politicians, should resign or be kicked out of the Senate and Congress."
Couldn't have said it better myself, except to add: If the Justice Department and the FBI were doing their jobs, they would investigate for possible prosecution on charges of treason. Kennedy got away with drowning a woman. This time, letting him "get away with it" would send an encouraging message to others who would cross the line from home-base political maneuvering to betrayal of one's country.
Wes Vernon is a Washington-based writer and veteran broadcast journalist.
© Copyright 2007 by Wes Vernon
http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/vernon/070219
[propaganda in a suit]
http://www.ipc.gov.ps/ipc_new/english/details.asp?name=18194
20/02/2007
Israel Dodges Real Negotiations, Lawmaker Dahlan Says
RAMMALLAH, Palestine, February 20, 2007 (IPC+ Agencies) - -Mohammed Dahlan, Lawmaker and Revolutionary Council Member said " the Palestinian leadership will never enable Israel to impose its "twisted" logic on the President Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian people.
Dahlan told the reporters that the Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert was outraged during the tripartite meeting between Olmert, Abbas and US Secretary of state Condoleezza Rice as Olmert demanded Abbas not to join next gov't.
Dahaln said in a press briefing at his office in Rammallah just few hour after the tripartite meeting "Israel could not impose its outlook on Abu Mazen and Palestine Liberation Organization in handling the Palestinian affair."
" we reached internal understandings, crowned with Mecca pact and utmost efforts were made to regain unity and will never allow Israel to impose its twisted attitude on the Palestinian people."
He underlined that its was possible to differentiate between the American and Israeli stances in spite that USA stance announced by Rice was not a surprise.
"Israel refuses totally to deal with the government and asked Fateh not to join the government and we refuse and Fateh will join the government as the executive committee and president Abbas chose." Dahlan said.
He added" Rice's stance was not a surprise and it was expected and we told her we have our own private national agenda and no one could compel us to abide with conditions are not in concur with our internal agenda."
Dahaln said Israel is playing the same game that of practiced by the then prime minister Arial Sharon, accusing the passing President Yasser Arafat as "irrelevant partner" and today labeled the President Abbas " weak" only for evading to involve into a real and serious negotiations.
" Israel have to know today it stands before a historic chance to deal with the unity government able to abide by signed agreements," Dahlan said.
Al Ahmad; Mecca pact used in trickery
Azzam Al Ahmad, head of Fateh's parliamentary bloc said in " the "face the press" show commissioned by Information Ministry office in Rammallah, Mecca deal over formation of national unity government " live up with the Quartet conditions."
" All demands by the Quartet reaffirmed in Mecca deal even if Rice kept day and night saying unavailable, " Al Ahmad said.
He deemed that Mecca deal has been used in a trick way to abort trilateral meeting because Israel is unready to resume peace process."
http://www.westernresistance.com/
February 20, 2007
Pakistan: Islamist Fanatic Kills Woman Minister
Huma.jpgNews from Fox News, Reuters and the Pakistan Daily Times:
A woman minister in Pakistan was shot in the head earlier today by a Muslim described as a "fanatic". 37-year old Zilla Huma Usman (pictured) was a minister for social welfare in Punjab province, a mother of two sons and married to a doctor. She also ran a small fashion design business in Gujranwala.
She was at Pakistan Muslim League House in Gujranwala today when there was a brief power cut. During this, the man shot her in the head and shoulder. Zilla was rushed to Lahore General Hospital by helicopter, still alive, but she died shortly after admission.
Politically, Zilla was close to President Musharraf, and supported his policies of "enlightened moderation". She also promoted women's rights.
The reasons for the killing were explained by the gunman himself, Mohammed Sarwar, to television cameras. He said: "I have no regrets. I just obeyed Allah's commandment." He said that Islam did not allow women to be in positions of power. "I will kill all those women who do not follow the right path, if I am freed again," he claimed.
Punjab Law Minister Raja Basharat said: "He is basically a fanatic. He is against the involvement of women in politics and government affairs. He considers it contrary to the teachings of Allah for a woman to become a minister or a ruler. That's why he committed this action." The minister promised "effective and immediate prosecution" of the killer, saying the government had ordered that the case should be brought to court within 14 days.
Local police officer Nazir Ahmed said: "He killed her because she was not observing the Islamic code of dress. She was also campaigning for emancipation of women."
Sarwar was immediately placed under arrest, with a murder charge lodged against him. He is a stone mason by trade, aged in his mid-40s. He had already been implicated in four actual murders and two attempted murders in Gujranwala. He had been released in relation to these previous cases for "insufficient evidence".
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 10:55 PM
Thanks for the ping Ruth. What they don't mention is the people who work there. That's the #1 reason I dont eat out any more. We have a very upscale restaurant here which gave one of our customers food poisoning...........so it doesn't matter where you eat. It DOES matter that our country has turned into Mexico and no one cares.--+--
Iran 'swiftly seeks nuclear goal'
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said Iran will try to achieve nuclear capability as soon as possible.
His comments, reported by Iran's Isna news agency, come as a UN deadline for Iran to freeze its uranium enrichment programme expires.
For the first time, a political party in Iran has called on Mr Ahmadinejad to accept the UN's demands.
Iran denies Western claims that it is seeking nuclear weapons, saying its programme is for purely peaceful ends.
A UN resolution, adopted on 23 December 2006, imposed sanctions against Iran's nuclear and missiles programmes and opened the way for further measures if it failed to halt uranium enrichment within two months.
Following the deadline's expiry on Wednesday, the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) nuclear watchdog is expected to report that Iran has defied a 60-day ultimatum to suspend the activity.
Last year Iran resumed uranium enrichment - a process that can make fuel for power stations or, if greatly enriched, material for a nuclear bomb.
Signs of dissent
Speaking in the northern Iranian town of Siahkal, Mr Ahmadinejad said Iran was determined to acquire nuclear capabilities, even to the exclusion of everything else.
It is worth it to stop other activities for 10 years and focus only on the nuclear issue
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Iranian president
"We... will continue our work to reach our right [to nuclear technology] in the shortest possible time," Isna quoted Mr Ahmadinejad as saying.
"Obtaining this technology is very important for our country's development and honour. It is worth it to stop other activities for 10 years and focus only on the nuclear issue."
But one small radical reformist Iranian political party, the Islamic Revolutionary Mujahadin Organisation, has complained that Iran's drive to produce nuclear energy has endangered national security, the national interest and the destiny of the Iranian people.
"The [Iranian] officials should open talks before [UN] Resolution 1737's deadline runs out and accept its sensitive requirements to prevent the adoption of new resolutions against our country," the party was quoted by AFP news agency as saying.
"This nation has other more important and undeniable rights which should not be sacrificed for this one," it said in a statement.
The party asks why Iran needs to produce the fuel for one power plant that has not even been completed yet.
The BBC's Frances Harrison says this is the first time there has been open criticism of Mr Ahmedinejad's nuclear policy.
Allies of the president in parliament were quick to say it came from lackeys of the United States who did not even know the basics of politics, our correspondent adds.
Earlier, Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani said the nuclear issue could only be resolved through dialogue, not force.
"Anybody interested in non-conventional or illogical, irrational [moves] would definitely receive an appropriate response," he said after meeting IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei in Vienna.
But he said Iran was looking "for ways and means to start negotiations".
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/6381477.stm
Published: 2007/02/21 12:10:51 GMT
© BBC MMVII
Prosecutors 'uncover mafia plot'
Prosecutors in Italy say the have uncovered a mafia plot to kill the former head of the Italian parliament's anti-mafia committee, Giuseppe Lumia.
Police have arrested one suspect and have begun investigating another who is already in jail.
Prosecutors say the reputed former head of the mafia, Bernardo Provenzano, ordered the killing in 2000, while he was still at large.
He was arrested last April after more than 40 years on the run.
Meanwhile, the sister of the murdered anti-mafia judge Paolo Borsellino has criticised a court for ordering a softer prison regime for five mafia members, three of whom were convicted of involvement in her brother's murder in 1992.
Rita Borsellino said the law should be changed to prevent repeated appeals.
She said the hard prison regime was a necessary precaution, not a vengeful punishment.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/6379613.stm
Published: 2007/02/20 15:35:04 GMT
© BBC MMVII
Crew call for ship to be arrested
The crew of a ship who barricaded themselves in their cabins in a row over wages are seeking to have the vessel arrested.
The Russian sailors on board the Merchant Brilliant, which is anchored three miles off Heysham, Lancashire, claim they are owed $167,000 (£86,516).
They have been talking with the ship's Latvian owners, ADG Shipping, but have failed to reach a settlement.
The crew now plans to petition the Admiralty Marshal to arrest the ship.
If the petition is accepted, the ship would be sailed back to port, have papers served on it and the vessel would be impounded pending a court settlement.
'Stalemate'
The International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF), which has two inspectors on board helping to broker a deal, are now finding legal representation for 11 members of the crew to petition the Admiralty Marshal for the arrest to take place.
ITF spokesman Sam Dawson said: "Talks with the owners of the Jamaican-flagged Merchant Brilliant are at a stalemate and 11 of the crew members have therefore decided to seek the arrest of the ship."
Ken Fleming, an ITF inspector on board the ship, said there had been a heated debate with the ship's owners on Monday night over pay and excessive hours.
As a result, the crew and the inspectors barricaded themselves inside the cabin overnight by putting furniture against the doors as the ship sailed from Belfast.
However, when it docked at Heysham in the morning, they came out.
They then anchored off the coast where they spent the day trying to reach a deal with the owners.
Suspended hire
A spokesman for Norfolkline, which chartered the Merchant Brilliant, said the firm had temporarily ended its hire of the vessel.
"The charter agreement between Norfolkline and the owner of the Merchant Brilliant, ADG, clearly stipulates that the vessel be operated in accordance with ITF guidelines," he said.
"Talks between the owner of the Merchant Brilliant and the ITF are ongoing, and we are hopeful that a fair and satisfactory conclusion to this matter can be reached in as short a time as possible.
"However until such a time, Norfolkline has decided to suspend the hire of the vessel."
It is thought that papers may be served on the ship on Wednesday.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/england/lancashire/6380465.stm
Published: 2007/02/20 19:40:18 GMT
© BBC MMVII
Tehran alarm over US tough talk
By Frances Harrison
BBC News, Tehran
What will alarm Tehran about the latest details of US military planning for a strike on Iran is the fact that there are now two possible triggers for an attack.
One is, as expected, the nuclear programme. But the new one is any major attack on US forces in Iraq that could be traced back to Iran.
With the head of the UN nuclear watchdog Mr ElBaradei saying it could take Iran another six to 12 months to get 3,000 centrifuges running, and four to six years to be able to produce a bomb if it wanted one, there is still time for negotiations on the nuclear front.
But it is tensions over Iraq that have escalated sharply in recent weeks with the US arresting Iranians they say are members of the elite Qods Brigade of the Revolutionary Guards.
Unfair
There is also a feeling among many analysts that the US has started building a case for war against Iran over its alleged interference in Iraq.
For many in Iran it seems unfair that the full blame for the violence in Iraq is suddenly being put on them and not on Sunni Arab countries that also back groups inside Iraq.
The US making public their targets for a possible military strike on Iran is likely to be seen in Tehran as part of ongoing Western pressure
They argue that the disintegration of Iraq is not in Iran's interests and they would like a stable neighbour with a predominately Shia government in power.
The US making public their targets for a possible military strike on Iran is likely to be seen in Tehran as part of ongoing Western pressure.
In public, Iranian officials always brush off such news as psychological warfare by the US.
The timing - just before the 21 February deadline set by the UN for Iran to halt its nuclear programme - is also likely to be seen as a threat intended to persuade Iran to back down.
In the Iranian establishment it appears there are deep differences of opinion about how grave the situation is.
Many reformists and moderates are very worried America is preparing for war, but hardliners like President Ahmedinejad seem to dismiss the risk believing their own propaganda that Iran is too powerful a nation to be attacked by the West.
Some take a middle position - arguing that the talk of war is a bluff - a means to pressure Iran. But they concede there is a possibility of an accidental war if Iranian Revolutionary Guards, for example, retaliated against US forces in Iraq.
They compare the situation to the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers last summer by Hezbollah in Lebanon which triggered the war there.
The argument is that if America provoked Iran enough by arresting key military figures inside Iraq then their colleagues might be tempted to take revenge and perhaps kidnap US soldiers which would provide an excuse for air strikes on Iran.
Censored
Among the Iranian people there is not much awareness of the drum beats of war. The local media is heavily controlled and censored and many Iranians do not speak a foreign language to allow them to access the international press.
Independent websites in Persian have been filtered by the government, including the BBC's own Persian language site, in what some here believe is a deliberate attempt by the government to keep its own people in the dark.
Unsubstantiated rumours circulate about when an attack might come but everyone goes about their lives as normal.
There is no sense that people are preparing for difficult times ahead - but there is uncertainty and confusion about the future.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/6378765.stm
Published: 2007/02/20 12:53:59 GMT
© BBC MMVII
Maoists walk out of Nepalese camp
Hundreds of former Maoist rebels living in a rehabilitation camp in the south of Nepal have walked out, complaining of poor accommodation and food.
They have blamed the government for failing to meet their basic needs in the cantonment at Chitwan.
More than 500 unarmed ex-rebels said they were leaving the camp in search of work. Correspondents say their actions clearly violate last year's ceasefire.
The camp is one of 28 set up for the rebels after the peace agreement.
Worsened conditions
"We can't live like this. Despite several assurances, the government has not provided us with the basic needs, so that is why we decided to leave the camp," one of the rebels, called Abhiral, told the AP news agency.
He said that a lack of construction materials meant that many former guerrillas had been living in shelters made of straw and leaves, and heavy winter rains last week had worsened conditions.
The BBC's Surendra Phuyal in Kathmandu says that many of those who left the Chitwan camp are now working in nearby brick kilns and road construction sites under the supervision of their commanders.
A local Maoist commander, Bibidh, told the BBC that more fighters would leave the camp in days to come, depending on the availability of labour.
'Heavily indebted'
Krishna Bahadur Mahara, the Maoist spokesman in Kathmandu, warned that continuing budgetary shortfalls could force up to 20,000 out of the 30,000 or so Maoist fighters to venture out of the camps to find labour jobs.
Although the government says it has allocated the necessary budget for the Maoist fighters, their leaders say they are facing an acute shortage of lodging and ration provisions in the seven main temporary cantonments.
"We are heavily indebted too, we can't go on like this," Mr Mahara said. "But if our financial requirements are met, things could change."
Officials at the Ministry of Finance say they have already released 500 million rupees (around $6.5m) for the upkeep of the rebel cantonments and the fighters.
But Maoist commanders say that amount is insufficient to meet basic needs and to pay salaries.
They say that they have informed the government and the UN about their move.
The rebel fighters were placed in cantonments under UN supervision after November's historic peace deal.
The UN is currently working to register and verify the rebel fighters and their arms.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/6382093.stm
Published: 2007/02/21 12:16:21 GMT
© BBC MMVII
Iranian President Says Iran Ready To Suspend Enrichment 'If West Does So'
Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinezhad addresses the residents of the city of Rasht in Gilan Province -- live
Originally published on 2/20/2007 by Islamic Republic of Iran News Network Television (IRINN) in Persian
In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. O God, please hasten the lofty advent of your regent [the Hidden Imam]. God grant us good health and assistance and give us the status of being his best helpers.
I am grateful to Almighty God for granting me the honor of meeting the best examples of the Iranian nation, that is, the noble and struggling people of Gilan and the proud town of Rasht [shouts of approval]. You are from the midst of the people who made history, who contributed to culture, who were the vanguards of safeguarding the faith and who were the genuine promoters of Alawi [from Imam Ali] doctrine and genuine Mohammedan Islam. Your people, throughout history, have turned their homeland into the cradle of nurturing the doctrine of Islam's beloved prophet and a place of refuge for his descendants. Your people, throughout history, have courageously and proudly protected this realm and this land from the covetous hands of bandits and foreign forces. Your people, honorably and admirably, stood firm against aggressors and did not let the flag of the Iranian nation's generosity fall on the ground. Your people are truly the representation of nobility, chastity, patience, resistance and struggle along the path of God.
I would like to announce, with utmost pride, that this land, this people, the people of Rasht, are the standard-bearers of the Iranian nation's freedom and honorable pride [shouts of approval]. Your people have granted the gift of struggle and faith to our history and to our nation. This is the land which nurtured Mirza Kuchek Khan Jangali [revolutionary figure of early 20th century]. He was a unique hero who, during the era of alienation, stood firm against the tyrannical regime which was affiliated to colonialism and [global] arrogance. He stood firm to courageously defend the Iranian nation's religion, honor and reverence. May God bless the people of this region. May God's greetings be upon the ulema [clerics], scholars and strugglers. May God bless the virtuous and chaste mothers of Gilan, who nurture the knowledgeable and hard working men. May God's greetings be upon the toiling, patience and contented fathers in Gilan. May God bless the souls of martyrs. May God bless the war-disabled and the former prisoners of war. May God bless the capable and hard working hands of the farmers and fishermen from this land. And finally, I beseech God to bless the faithful young people of Gilan, the chaste and pure girls as well as the courageous and zealous boys [Shouts of support for Ahmadinezhad]. And I am very fond of you and whole-heartedly love each and every one of you.
I would like to announce proudly, to let the world know, that the sacred land of Gilan and the dear people of Rasht are the cradle of science, literature, theology, divine knowledge, art and courage for the entire land of Iran [shouts of approval]. And the Iranian nation, in all these arenas, remains indebted to the people of Gilan. Iran today to a great extent owes its independence and honor to the martyrs, the war-disabled and other noble and courageous men and women of this region. May God bless you, your ancestors and your virtuous families.
I would like to discuss two issues in your presence. The first issue concerns the means we require and the tasks we need to perform in order to rebuild our beloved Iran. The second issue is about the jobs which should be done in the proud province of Gilan. However, before discussing the two issues, I would like to offer my sincere congratulations to the entire Iranian nation and to you, my dear ones, on the auspicious occasion of the anniversary of the birth of Imam [Muhammad] Baqer [fifth imam of the Shiites].
[The audience asks Ahmadinezhad to discuss development projects. He says:] There will be time for that too. Please be patient and do not be in a hurry. This year was named after the hallowed name of our beloved prophet. Our prophet is the nucleus of mercy, the focal point of decency and the symbol of all the beautiful things in the world. We are sorry to see that bullies and the arrogant powers of the world do not allow the world nations' souls and hearts to receive this great divine prophet's message of compassion and his message of salvation. They do not allow humanity to become familiar with this beloved figure, this entity who loves human beings and this symbol of mercy for the world creatures. They are against the idea of allowing the world nations to fully benefit from the blessings of our noble prophet. However, thanks to God's succor and without any doubt, the brilliant sun of our noble prophet's existence will enlighten the world; and the radiance of his guidance and the resonance of his mercy and compassion will fill the world. I hope that thanks to the blessings of naming this year after the prophet, we shall be more active and more hard-working in this year; and that the year will bring successive victories, progress and strength to the Iranian nation. And I hope that it will be the year of paying attention to God, the year of praying more and the year of witnessing the divine mercy, thanks to the blessings of Muhammad and his scion [shouts of peace and salutation for Prophet Muhammad].
The Iranian nation's major mission today is to rebuild Iran and to present a unique example of untainted Islamic way of life to humanity, which is thirsty for spirituality and justice. We must rebuild Iran today.
In order to rebuild Iran, several tasks must be fulfilled. The first prerequisites for building the country are hard work and positive endeavor. In other words, we need to generate wealth. We, that is the entire Iranian nation, are duty-bound to join hands in order to push the country forwards with all our might. Generation of wealth is tantamount to increasing productivity, to increasing agricultural output, to producing more industrial goods, to providing more services and to offering more educational facilities. Our country is blessed with many talents and capabilities. It is not possible to make progress without generating wealth and increasing the public assets. We must join hands so as to generate wealth from every inch of this land and in order to help our country reach the zenith of progress.
The next task is to distribute wealth on a just basis. If all the talents in the country were to blossom but remain at the disposal of a particular group of people, this state will not realize its objectives and aspirations. If that were to happen, there would be no possibility of achieving proper progress. The government is determined to distribute the country's resources all over the country justly, and in pursuit of this goal, the government requires the nation's support. We also need to perform a lot of tasks in order to implement justice. One of the tasks is to pay attention to the fair distribution of resources; the government is insisting today that the country's resources and opportunities should be distributed all over the country on a fair basis.
Furthermore, the government insists that the [state-owned] companies, foundations, factories and other assets which have accumulated thanks to the petrodollars of bygone years, should be distributed among various strata of the people on a fair basis. A major part of the policies proposed by Article 44 [of the constitution] concerns the fair distribution of the country's assets. We have calculated that so far the accumulated state-owned investments have exceeded the sum of 150,000 billion tomans. State-owned investments bring very low return not only in our country but everywhere else. This is because such investments are not managed properly. These assets belong to the people and must be returned to the people [long shouts of approval].
Thanks to the policies endorsed by the beloved supreme leader of the revolution [Ali Khamene'i], the government is determined to return these assets to the people in two ways. One method is through the distribution of justice shares. God willing, 40 per cent of this wealth will be distributed among various strata of the people through allocation of justice shares. Priority will be given to the deprived and the low-income strata of the people. This task has started and will go forward at a high speed. Another 40 per cent will become available to the public, as far as possible, via the stock exchange. We shall set conditions to make sure that this national fund is not monopolized by particular individuals who harbor certain viewpoints and pursue certain interests. As far as possible we shall make sure that these shares are available to members of the public.
You know that over the past 15 years, under the pretext of pursuing the policy of privatization, nearly 3,000 billion tomans of the Iranian nation's public wealth was distributed among particular groups of people. A part of such assets, in this province of Gilan, was placed at the disposal of a particular group through the [officials'] agreement. I obtained a report of the share allocation later. For instance, a valuable public asset such as the Iran Electric Company was placed at the disposal of a particular group at a very low price. The recipients of the shares had promised to develop the company, to preserve its assets and to respect the rights of the workers. But unfortunately, despite making such promises, the beneficiaries pursued only their own self interest. They began laying off the workers and sought every opportunity [to fill their own pockets]. However, today the government will try to distribute the accumulated assets on a just basis. In addition, thanks to divine relief during this visit, we shall take firm decisions to recover the rights of the workers and the rights of the Iranian nation [shouts of approval].
Article 44 also recommends pursuing the policy of paving the way for the people to invest. My dear ones! we must promote the attitude of investment among the public and turn it into the desire of working hard to rebuild Iran. This should be available to everyone everywhere. By promoting investment, we do not mean the opportunity should be exclusively available to the [wealthy] individuals who can invest thousands of billions of tomans. Of course we do not reject this either. However, by promoting investment we mean everyone should be allowed to invest in every sector of the country. If anyone has only the sufficient means to invest in a single brick in the process of rebuilding this country to generate wealth, then he should be allowed to do so. On the other hand, another person might be able to invest hundreds of thousands of tomans. He [or she] too should be permitted to participate in the wealth generation process within his means. The government's task is to pave the way. The government's duty is to provide the necessary regulations and to offer support. God willing, I shall gradually brief the nation, both during this visit and later in Tehran, on the tasks currently undertaken by the government.
Please pay attention to the fact that the process of distributing the public assets and promoting investment in parallel is a major economic revolution. This is tantamount to Iran's entry into modern and advanced arenas.
Another task which it is necessary to perform is the fight against instances of economic corruption. Unfortunately, some individuals insinuate that fair distribution of wealth will lead to poverty and that the policy of combating corruption will discourage investment. In reality neither of these two statements is correct. Both these statements distract attention from the facts. When we combat economic corruption, in reality we pave the way for positive endeavor and hard work. It will not be possible to witness the country's development in the midst of encouraging speculation, supporting cronyism and backing the interests of a particular group of individuals [shouts of approval]. In fact, the process of fighting corruption amounts to destroying the germs, the parasites and the ailments which prevent progress of the state and economic growth of the country.
The Iranian nation is a virtuous and chaste nation. The Iranian nation is eager to rebuild the country in a healthy environment and in a suitable atmosphere. However, when the nation is confronted by the swamp of corruption, decent people abandon the arena. As a result all the means and capabilities will be monopolized by a particular group of individuals.
Fighting economic corruption is a major work which needs to be accomplished with the help of God through national will and collaboration to eradicate selfish, opportunistic exploitations of some individuals in various fields.
The other issue which needs to be addressed is to endeavor to obtain advanced technology. Without advanced technological know-how it will not be possible to reach the summits of progress. Today our universities, experts, scientists, our determined and knowledgeable youth, join forces and conquer the peaks of technology and science one by one. Without science and technology it will not be possible to make progress. When you see enemies of humanity are opposed to our scientific progress is because they do not want our nation to make any progress in various fields and to reach the climax of scientific progress. They know if they prevent our technological progress in new fields the nation will naturally be kept backward. Not only such a nation can not manage itself but also it will never become a role model for other nations.
When you see that some big powers are strongly confronting our nation against access to peaceful nuclear technology it is because they know that benefiting from nuclear technology opens big windows to new arenas. This means the Iranian nation will be amongst the most powerful nation in the world. [Crowd chanting nuclear energy our inalienable right]
They know as well as we do that the day the Iranian nation is able to have complete use of nuclear fuel cycle in industrial, agricultural, medical and various other fields, Iranians will have a huge leap of progress in their lives. That is why they are trying to deprive our nation [of this technology].
Of course you are already well aware of the nuclear row and I do not want to take up your time here, but you can see that currently some people want to confront the Iranian nation by chanting opposing slogans and making contradictory claims.
From one side they claim that they favor talks and negotiations, as do we also. Our nation is in favor of talks and welcomes logic. We never favor tension or conflict. We have always been in favor of talks. But the pre-conditions they set for talks in fact deprive us of our rights. They say they are ready for negotiations over Iran's nuclear case on the condition that we suspend our nuclear activities. Well, the stance that our nation takes against such logic is very clear. [Crowd chanting down with America]
We say how come your enormous nuclear fuel factories are working 24-hours a day, but you feel threatened by our newly-built scientific complex and ask us to close it down before we can negotiate.
We have said that we are for talks and negotiations under fair circumstances. This means that both sides have to negotiate under equal circumstances. If you decide to talk to us from a position of power and use some of the international organizations to oppress us, you must know that you will be defeated by the resistance, unity and steadfastness of the Iranian nation. [Indistinct chants and whistles from the crowd]. We want talks under just conditions.
If you say that we have to shut down our installation used for producing nuclear fuel and the fuel cycle before talks can begin, that's fine. However, justice dictates that those who want to negotiate with us must also suspend their activities related to the nuclear fuel cycle, so that we will be able to negotiate under just circumstances. We are ready for talks and think that it possible to resolve issues through talks.
However, they must know that if they think that they will be able to do anything by creating quarrels, discord and differences in our nation's ranks, they are completely mistaken. Look, this is Gilan. See how the people of Gilan and Rasht, who are a model of the Iranian nation, are present on the scene. Just as the people of Rasht came to the scene in an epic presence and put on a display of their overwhelming presence, the whole of the Iranian nation is steadfast and will defend its nuclear right until the end.
But let me say a few words about building the dear province of Gilan. [Crowd cheers] God willing, we will be your guests for three days. From quite some time ago, expert groups began working in Tehran to examine the entire province's talents in different sectors, the province's needs, tasks that have to be completed, tasks that have to be started, regulations that need to be created, limitations that have to be overcome. Experts, ministers, vice-presidents, provincial managers [Ahmadinezhad stops because someone in the crowd is telling him something] - I'll come to that - provincial managers, honorable [Majles] deputies have (?considered) these. God willing, they will become official at the cabinet meeting.
Let me reiterate something before I say a few important points about Gilan. Without a doubt this green expanse and very beautiful and exceptional environment of Gilan will not make us overlook the province's real needs and deprivations. [Crowd cheers]
However, the government has focused on several axes in Gilan Province and, God willing, it will come to your assistance with correct decisions for building the province. Gilan Province, whether in terms of natural resources or in terms of human resources is the most well-endowed province and region in the country. And when we come to this province and see that dear youngsters ask us to do something to tackle unemployment and create employment [crowd interrupts with repeated chants of "unemployment, unemployment"] - we become very saddened; that there should be so much natural talent, so much human talent, intelligent, talented and work-oriented young people, and that we should still see youth unemployment.
God-willing, the government will make good decisions and pave the way for your positive effort and activities.
One of the main issues that the government is planning to address is the situation of agriculture. There is no doubt that agriculture in Gilan Province is the main pillar of its economic activities. As mentioned before, an important part of the agricultural needs of the Iranian nation, such as tea, rice and silkworm, are produced by the hardworking and humble men and women in Gilan. God-willing, the government will make good decisions and provide the necessities for agricultural development. Another vital issue for the [Gilan] province is industrial development. [interrupted by the crowd]. [To the crowd] Unfortunately I can't hear you.
The other issue is lifting the ban on industrial investment. God-willing, as the first step, the license for [establishing] a petrochemical complex for this province will be issued during this trip.
In addition [interrupted by the crowd, in response to the crowd] I don't feel well now so I won't go into details. The other subject in which this province has great capacities is tourism. Beautiful beaches, beautiful forests, cultural heritage, rare and unique tourist attractions give exceptional opportunities to this province. At present time, many of our fellow Iranians travel [to this province] every year but the tourism capacity of this province is much more than what is currently being used.
The government has made very good decisions for tourism development and restoring the beaches. Another great feature of this province is its capacity to improve foreign trade and economic cooperation with neighboring states.
Gilan Province is in a very exceptional position. We think and believe that this province can meet many of the demands of the neighboring states and increase the general wealth of the people through production and trade.
In addition to that, it is on the government's agenda to give direct support to job creation and investment in the province. This year, we have allocated over 750b tomans [approximately 750m dollars] for creating job opportunities in the province. [People chant: high prices]. I hope that this budget will be well absorbed in the province through the efforts of the Gilani youth. We hope that we will be able to increase the budget of the province in the future. You will, God-willing, be informed about the details of the decisions made by the government during this trip.
I would like to make a request and also thank you at the end of my speech. I'll start with my request. The dear people of Gilan and the friendly people of Rasht you have always been the frontrunners in many fields. Today is another chance for you roll up your sleeves and reconstruct this proud province side-by-side the government and with the help of the government. We shall make this province a role-model of progress for other provinces. [Crowd cheers]
And now I would like to thank you for coming here today. With your enthusiastic presence you brought honor for the province and the Iranian nation, gave hope to all nations and disappointed the enemies.
Now I will pray for you to thank you. Oh dear, compassionate, powerful and wise God make these people more honorable day after day. [crowd says amen] Oh dear God, protect these young ones [crowd says amen], help them reach the peaks of progress, science and faith [crowd says amen], Oh God, remove the obstacles in the way of these people's progress [crowd says amen]. Oh dear God, help our nation reach the peaks of honor [crowd says amen] Make our enemies miserable [crowd says amen] and continue your blessings for our nation [crowd says amen]. Oh God, save all the nations that are entrapped [by the evil] [crowd says amen], Oh dear God, save the innocent Iraqi nation [crowd says amen], Oh God, respond to the tyrants and bullies with your power [crowd says amen].
May you always be victorious, honored and dignified.
: Tehran Islamic Republic of Iran News Network Television (IRINN) in Persian -- State-run 24-hour news channel in Persian, Arabic and English; presenting up to the minute domestic and international news. It offers exclusive interviews on a variety of topics, as well as information on universities, labor, and economic developments from the capital and the provinces.
Iran Tests Impenetrable Communications System
Iran Tests Impenetrable Communications System
Originally published on 2/20/2007 by Fars News Agency (Internet Version-WWW) in English
[Computer selected and disseminated without OSC Editorial intervention]
TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Ground forces of Iran's Islamic Revolution's Guards Corps (IRGC) successfully tested an impenetrable intranet communications network during the second stage of their extensive war games codenamed 'Eqtedar' (Might). The system has been designed and developed by IRGC experts.
The second phase of the IRGC maneuvers which started in 16 provinces of the country on Tuesday also included test firing of 620 shoulder launch missiles and different types of anti-air defense systems such as anti-aircraft, anti-helicopter and anti-missile systems.
The IRGC ground force units also exercised different tactics for encountering air aggression by the enemy troops at this stage of the maneuvers.
The extensive military exercises of the IRGC ground force started in 16 different provinces of the country on Monday.
During the three-day-long maneuvers, 20 infantry and mechanized brigades of IRGC's ground forces practice different tactics in three different stages while using the most advanced weaponries.
A statement released by IRGC's public relations on Sunday said that the war games have been designed to help forces keep up their preparedness for all-around defense and asymmetric war through practice of the various types of battle tactics.
According to the statement, the maneuvers, code named 'Eghtedar' (Might), are the last in a series of war games foreseen in IRGC's schedule for this year.
Iranian IRGC troops have already staged several other military exercises during this (Iranian solar calendar) year, including 'the Great Prophet' 1 and 2 as well as two other missile war games by IRGC naval forces called 'Ra'd' (thunder) and Sa'eqeh' (lightening).
Iran test-fired its short-range Zelzal and Fajr-5 missiles during its recent maneuvers. While the Zalzal is a solid fuel missile, the Fajr-5 missile, from the Persian word meaning dawn, is an artillery rocket developed by Iran in early 2006. It includes a mobile platform and its primary role is to engage land targets, with a range of 50 miles.
Iran also held three large-scale military exercises last year. In its April exercises, Iran tested what it called an "ultra-horizon" missile, which is fired from helicopters and jets, and the Fajr-3 missile, which can evade radar and use multiple warheads to hit several targets simultaneously.
Iran regularly holds large maneuvers, often using them to test weapons developed by its arms industry.
: Tehran Fars News Agency (Internet Version-WWW) in English -- Privately-owned news agency. It began operating in mid November 2002. Its managing editor is Mehdi Faza'eli, the editor in chief of the Javan daily and a member of the managerial board of the Association of Muslim Journalists. The other members of the board of directors of the news agency, are Alizera Shemirani, of Farda newspaper, Abdollah Moqaddam and Akbar Nabavi of Resalat newspaper, the former director of Farabi Foundation Hasan Eslami-Mehr, and university professor Abolhoseyn Ruholamin.
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